


By Way of the Blue Butterfly

by Jaspercindercity



Series: Rhapsody in Blue [1]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Anorexia, Child Abuse, Eating Disorders, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sex, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Multi-shipping, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-05-08 09:49:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 25
Words: 36,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14691654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaspercindercity/pseuds/Jaspercindercity
Summary: He traces over the slate black exterior. He wraps his slender fingers around the holster and the gun thrums in his hand. He tightens his grip and he feels the familiar stir of elation, the promise of a thrill. He hasn’t felt this unadulterated electricity in years, not without the ashy taste of a tablet coupled with the bare press of naked skin and wandering hands.It’s better than sex, a statement no self-respecting red-blooded boy should admit too, but Nathan is higher than high.Snapshots of Nathan Prescott tackling eating disorders, suicide, love, sex, and pain.





	1. By Way of the Blue Butterfly

**Author's Note:**

> My beautiful flawed characters, all that glitters, is not gold.
> 
> To the characters who are condemned, who are broken, who are wrong, ultimately, dismissed.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or at least he tries to, anyways. He traces over the slate black exterior. He wraps his slender fingers around the holster and the gun thrums in his hand. He tightens his grip and he feels the familiar stir of elation, the promise of a thrill. He hasn’t felt this unadulterated electricity in years, not without the ashy taste of a tablet coupled with the bare press of naked skin and wandering hands.
> 
> It’s better than sex, a statement no self-respecting red-blooded boy should admit too, but Nathan is higher than high.

Dying on the toilet isn’t the worst way to go, Nathan reasons. Though, technically he isn’t _on_ a toilet as he is _near_ one. The air smells faintly of lemon pledge with just a hint of toxic nitrates, the latter of which invokes a sick sense of sentimentality, what with seedy underground bunkers and the muted rouge of a dark room. 

There’s no place like home.

No really, there isn’t. He imagines most mansions aren’t haunted by the ghosts of distant daughters and their far-off fathers. But then he is immediately reminded of an immaculate cap of dirty blonde hair and purple cashmere topped off with an ironically outdated set of pearls.

“Looks like we’re totally stuck together,” she had sympathetically whined when she sat across from him during yet another dreary dinner party. “Sad face,” she’d winked before popping a strawberry off his plate and into her pink pout. 

“Hey, that’s my strawberry,” Nathan had retorted, which was about as eloquent as any fourteen-year-old boy could conjure in the company of a pretty girl and flutes of champagne.

Everyone had heard.

On cue, his father had swiveled his head a one-eighty and shot him an unforgiving glare; his mother’s immaculate violet mouth puckered- hell, he half expected their gracious host to catapult him through the ice sculptures.

He doesn’t remember much from that evening, except for his lapel, a regal purple that had sucked the pallor from his pale face. And he remembers afterward. 

“ _You were out of line, tonight Nathan,”_

_The crescent indents on his arm, his mother’s purple fingernails poking holes into his paper-thin skin._

Nathan’s always been rubbish at following directions. Even now he fingers the cold metal of his gun inside his jacket pocket. He pulls it out. Under the dim lighting of the bathroom, he can distinguish the unforgiving grooves and absurdly tiny trigger. 

The more Nathan studies it, the more tangible it grows, like the fear of realizing a spider has suddenly materialized on your skin.

At once, his pinky finger twitches, and the entirety of his right arm spasms.

“Motherfucker,” he spits out. As the tremor wracks his body, the gun clatters onto the off-white tiles. He grips the edge of the sink, riding off the stray spasms and the involuntary jerks of his appendages.

The bathroom is strangely unoccupied, which makes the impact resonate in the small, spotless space and he suspiciously wonders whether the opposite sex really shares the same bodily functions and if bathrooms are mini-government bases where David Madsen lookalikes monitor through hidden peepholes. He bends down and immediately pockets the gun for safekeeping.

Or at least he tries to, anyway. He traces over the slate black exterior. He wraps his slender fingers around the holster and the gun thrums in his hand. He tightens his grip and he feels the familiar stir of elation, the promise of a thrill. He hasn’t felt this unadulterated electricity in years, not without the ashy taste of a tablet coupled with the bare press of naked skin and wandering hands.

It’s better than sex, a statement no self-respecting red-blooded boy should admit too, but Nathan is higher than high.

When he bends the tip of his index finger on the trigger, he releases a shaky exhale. He wants to pull it so badly.

Cradling the gun, he presses it against his black satin pants. Even though the sturdy fabric- his clothes are nothing if not quality- the temperature gradient between the cool brass and his pulsing flesh nips his skin.

 _“Higher,”_ he mumbles.

He presses the gun against his navel. To his dismay, there is a soft paunch which obscures his stomach and his skin pulls tight against the barrel’s pressure. He consoles himself by imagining the fat drip out of a quarter-sized hole in his abdomen, like water draining from a bathtub.

“Higher,” he repeats, but this time, with all the rapture of a fanatic chanting hymn. He briefly toys with the idea of shooting straight through his heart, and even presses the gun against his chest, but he pulls away. There wouldn’t be much to shoot, anyway.

He hikes his arm higher and the gun clouds his peripheral vision until the barrel connects with his temples. Much better.

His lungs seize and he feels as if the air has been punched out of him, a not unfamiliar feeling, stunningly breathless.

He is airborne.

His fingers tremble on the trigger and he can’t swallow, and his vision is foggy, and oh look, a mirror, and he sees brown hair, and _fuck_ , his eyes are big, as big as a really big whatever, and they’re blue, too, like the bathroom walls, but bluer?, and he sees his mother’s cornflower eyes, and his father’s stern jaw, but nothing like Kristin, not even close, and his stomach still sticks out, and his hands are damp and the bathroom _still_ smells like lemon pledge. 

BAM!

He falls over like a stack of Dominoes and his barren body hits the floor.

No wait, he is still alive.

“Prescott, get your punk ass out here!”

Wait, did that bitch get the _wrong bathroom?_ Of course, he should have set up the rendezvous than trust the high-school dropout who was expelled for arson or some shit. Reminder, do not make plans when you smoke weed, he notes. Also, smoke less weed, but that’s neither here nor there right now. He just hopes the residents of the next door boys bathroom are mercifully inexistent, or at least, blissfully oblivious.  

He sighs, and lowers his gun and shoves it back into his pocket. And then he hears it. It’s small almost imperceivable, but the soft rustle of clothing registers on his acute eardrums. He’s an expert at tuning at the background noise that is his mundane existence, so the slight sound is deafening by standards. But when he looks around the bathroom he sees no one.

It’s a butterfly. It flaps its piercing sapphire wings, before fluttering towards him and gently landing on his marred knuckles. It flails its wings by way of greeting and flicks its antennae. _Hello._

“Um.” He feels like the same unsure, boy of fourteen, and hears his father’s chiding prattle his ears.

But the butterfly graces him with another gentle flap of its wings. Conventionally, Nathan shoots in black and white, but he thinks it would be a violation of nature to stain the butterfly’s brilliant blue wings a desolate grey.

“There you are!” The bathroom door slams open and the girl- Kelly? Caroline? Kale? - emerges with all the righteous fury of a Valkyrie and attire of a Hot Topic model from 2007.

The butterfly pumps its flimsy wings and disappears, presumably into a stall.

He takes a deep breath and pockets the gun while she hastily shuts the door behind him.

“Looks like we’re totally stuck together,” he thinks. Sad face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, please, review. I really appreciate the reviews. Even a word makes a huge difference. Also, please leave suggestions, I am open to suggestions or requests.


	2. Rain, Rain, Go Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rain beats outside Prescott Manor. Inside, a storm brews between Nathan and Sean Prescott.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When the people you love look at you with hate, the only thing you can do is box your ears and tune out the background noise.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

“Nathan.”

Tzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

“Nathan, you can not just!”

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

“Nathan, you goddam listen to me when I’m talking!”

Fizzle and pop.

At forty-two, Sean Prescott has amassed enough money to buy a small country and enough gray hair to give each citizen of said small country a peppered toupee. Nathan would like to personally take credit, but he’s not sure if sicing your kid on any old covetous shrink with an ivy league legacy entails much “worrying.”

Seriously, his last therapist had prescribed push-ups for his cold sweats and written off his near-death jump from the school roof as “horseplay.”

Nathan didn’t see the therapist again. Of course, it may also have something to do with how Nathan had proposed that the older gentleman could use his 157 IQ. to “eat his entire ass,” but it was probably just a matter of time anyway.

He wonders if he could suggest the same to the enraged Prescott Patriarch, but he’s felt the hard crack of his mother’s hand against his father’s venomous words to further contemplate such an inane fantasy.

“Nahan, _you_ will respect _me_ in this house-”

“Yes sir,” the words roll off his tongue like the practiced cantor of a well-trained horse. Although, training only takes you so far in the chaotic liaisons and partnerships that compromised the decadent, topmost crust of American wealth. Having a generous nest egg may certainly open doors, but carrying the polished name of a Prescott knocks down entire walls.

“You are going to listen to me-” 

“Yes, sir.” His father’s posture, the austere slope of a cyprus, cuts an imposing figure in the family study. Beneath Sean Prescott’s shrewd glare, Nathan’s back bends like the spokes on a rickety bicycle.

The warm crackle of the wooden fireplace has been replaced with a sleek, electric one which is about as inviting as a dentist’s office. A pity, Nathan thinks. To think he could have torched the entire estate to the ground if the original ochre hadn’t clashed with his mother’s periwinkle ottoman.

“I provide the necessary funds for your vapid parties, Nathan-”

A party, that’s what he needs. He’s been itching for a high ever since the fiasco in the girl’s bathroom last Monday and he needs to unwind. But parties aren’t much fun when you’re the only one shooting up in the pitch blackness of the unlit school gym. Parties need plans. Plans need people.

Without prompting, a woman’s blanched back criss-crossed by supple leather bindings illuminated his grainy phone screen. Her straps are neatly tied off in the endearingly sloppy bow of Sunday school shoe laces.

“ _Crying Lightning,”_ a British pop artist croons alongside the bass’s rugged warble. Sean pauses mid-rant.

“Haven’t I made a rule about those during our sessions?” Sean admonishes. His lips, an impeccable hyphen, doesn’t crease despite his abhorrent tone, tree-sap thick.

“ _And how you used to aggravate the icky man on rainy afternoons…”_ the singer’s jeering timbre blares through Nathan's phone speakers. Outside, the raindrops pit-pat against the pristine window panes as if they too seek shelter from the impending storm. _“Wrong house,”_ Nathan thinks.

He cringes.

“Answer it,” his father demands.  Nathan bolts off his chair and scrabbles to answer the phone.

“If I were any whiter, I could run for fucking Congress,”

“Hey Victoria,” Nathan responds. His voice rises an octave as his father ambles over to the wooden chair. He sits but doesn't recline.

“...What are you talking about?” Nathan turns the words over in his mouth before finally replying.

“I was on the steps with Courtney and Taylor when a can of fucking white paint dropped on me. My cashmere coat is ruined. And all those sluts could do was stare like it was the fucking circus…” She pauses mid-rant. This would be the part where Nathan would interject with an obscene comment about white fluid.

He doesn’t take the bait.

“I’m sorry to hear about that,” he replies. Behind him, his father raises an eyebrow. “ _Go on,”_ his eyes say. “ _There’s nothing you can hide from me.”_

“What? Nathan, what the fuck is wrong with you?” He could say the same. His father’s eyes are tacked to Nathan’s head, the passive gaze of a statue at an art exhibit. And yet, under his father’s withering stare, he can’t help but feel utterly exposed, as if he’s the one on display.

“It’s nothing, Victoria-” Victoria, never Vic or Vicky in his father’s presence “I’m completely fine.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he sinks his teeth into his tongue.  A necessary precaution, he can already feel the words bulging inside his Adam’s Apple. _Help Me._

“Alright, Nathan-” Nathan, not Nate, and he knows she understands- “I’ll be in touch.” She sounds like the check-out girl at a Barnes & Noble’s- _Thank you, Sir, come again._

“See you tomorrow.”

_Have a nice day, Sir, and thank you for shopping with us._

Click.

Nathan doesn’t put the phone down. He squeezes it against his ear the way a child presses a conch against their ear and hears the sea.

Bzzzzzzzzzzz

“Are you done, Nathan?” Sean’s brusque tone is laced with impatience. He squeezes the phone tighter against his ear.

Fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

He can hear it, a tiny storm, wedged between the microchips in his phone, a tempest of dust particles brewing between a labyrinth of copper conductors.

Kssssssssssshhhhhh

He is a storm chaser, hunting squalls, small as strawberry seeds.

He brushes against the wind-whipped whirls, he can hear the whips as air splinters apart, as the world is enveloped in a cacophony of white noise.

TtttttccchhhhhhhhhhhNATHANCUTTHATOUT!

His father yanks the phone from his ear and slams it into the beige davenport. The woman, with her bindings, fissures into a thousand fragments.

The desk, of course, is perfectly intact. Sean Prescott prefers his things durable, impervious to recurrent blows. Nathan crumples onto the floor and cocoons his ears.

“Stand up straight, Nathan.” Nathan springs to the balls of feet, jerky movements of an unsuspended marionette. 

“I won’t tolerate this blatant immaturity.” 

“Yes, sir.”

“We are here to rectify your behavior.”

“Yes, sir.”

“A Prescott does not behave in this manner.” 

“Yes, sir.”

Fzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to make this into a series of snapshots, and would greatly appreciate suggestions. Greatly appreciate.
> 
> Please review, every review makes my day.


	3. Love in the Time of Leather Straps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s weird how two people stake so much on love, invisible as air, thinner than onion skin. He thinks if he ever fell in love, he’d have to buy a collar, thick and leathery like the saddle straps of war horses. Then he’d chain his love and parade her around town like a prized pony for everyone to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor Caulscott!  
> Nathan was not made for love; a product, a victim of modern life?

One girl, One boy.

Under Joyce’s tender gaze, David Madsen mumbles like a schoolboy with a swollen tongue.

“You be good now, David.” She slides a brown paper bag across the obsidian counter, leaving a residue of grease.

“Yes, ma’am.” He opens the bag and inhales its contents with all the gusto of a crack addict snorting a line of cocaine.

“Kick ass, take names, bring home bacon.” Joyce’s apron twirls around a half second slower than the rest of her, an aura reminiscent of sweethearts splitting soda pops, Cadillacs in parking lots, and puffs of hairspray.

 Madsen salutes back with two fingers before trudging out the door.

Nathan cringes from behind the menu. It’s weird how two people in love seemed to revolve around each other like moons. Kick ass? Take names? The man was a security guard for God’s sake, not an FBI agent. He interrogated high schoolers for spitting gum and cited dress code violations for open-toed shoes.

 _“It’s 2013!”_ he wants to scream. There are no sweethearts, only impetuous quickies in bathroom stalls or broom closets- your roommate's car if you’re lucky. At best, you’ll forget it ever happened, maybe mention their names in fleeting conversation. _How’s Taylor? Fine, she’s fine._ At worst, a trip to planned parenthood.

“Hey babe, give Marty some sugar!” A cop puckers his lips and points to a chocolate sprinkled donut.

“How ‘bout some coffee to wake up that little brain of yours instead, Marty?” Joyce quips. Her words are sharp but have dulled over the years since her husband’s death. Nathan suspects David may have something to do with that. Throngs of hungry customers coo and caw. She brushes their hecklings off like crumbs on the counter, smoothing her frayed skirt.

“What can I get you, honey?” She attends to each customer with the casual air of an old friend, scribbling down orders like lucky lottery numbers.

It’s not an aura, Nathan realizes, but an envelope. From the bottom of her pointy blue heels to the uneven strands of hair that sit up like corn stalks, she is shrouded in David’s embrace, David’s love. Jeers slide off her like a cat’s claws on glass. The security guard lurks over her shoulder, his breath tickling her ear when he kisses goodbye in the mornings.

It’s weird how two people stake so much on love, invisible as air, thinner than onion skin. He thinks if he ever fell in love, he’d have to buy a collar, thick and leathery like the saddle straps of war horses. Then he’d chain his love and parade her around town like a prized pony for everyone to see.

Furtive glances thrown over shoulders, peeping behind newspapers, the incremental pauses from phone screens. Eyes like bees seeking out bright yellow pistils, immediately attached to that ample, black collar. Nathan’s sweetheart. They’d know. At the center, a lock. No Nathan, no entry.

They’d spit at him with such contempt. Warily regard the poor soul he had ensnared, Prescott’s new pet project. When he introduces his sweetheart, a polite smile for Nathan, a sympathetic one for his sweetheart. _Poor you,_ they convey, _you don’t deserve this do you?”_

When they are alone, only then, Nathan laughs. His sweetheart laughs with him and from the air, his sweetheart pulls out the key and dangles it in front of his face. _Click._ They twirl the key and the shackle falls loose, not a shackle all along.

He will trace his sweetheart’s skin, worshipping the sinuous veins of their nape, and there, in the grooves of his sweetheart’s collarbone, there is where he’ll find love. Splotches of eggplant decorate his sweetheart’s skin, and there, between shades of velvet and mulberry, he thinks he will see the color of love.

 _But this is 2013_ , he tells himself. What difference is there between Joyce’s soda pops and bubblegum and his leather and locks when they both belonged on book covers?

Sweetheart.

Darling.

Dollface, baby, hun, angel, dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to see no one, because NATHAN PRESCOTT is destined to die utterly alone.

He was not made for love and Joyce was not made for 2013.

“And there she is- a lovely, young woman. How are you doing Max?”

Nathan folds his hands and plops them in his lap. A twinge of laughter sweetens Joyce’s sentence like a dab of stray maple syrup on the edge of his plate.

“Hi Joyce, it’s nice to see you again. You look the same.” True. he supposes. The woman hasn’t aged two months in twenty years. Perhaps that’s what drew Madsen to the Two Whales, enamored with the older woman’s youthful demeanor- annnnddd, he wishes he had bleach so he could unsee that image.

“Like I’m still a waitress at the Two Whales after all these years?” The older woman laughed so easily when she was happy, and also when she was sad.

“No, pretty.”

_Pretty._

An alien concept to Nathan. He’d never heard pretty before. _Beautiful_ , in the sloppy, unpracticed mouths of teenage boys complimenting their first girlfriends at dances, _sexy,_ into the skin of bedpartners that tugged on his hair with feverish urgency, _gorgeous,_ the beckoning mouths of silver screen actresses.

But pretty? Pretty was the blossoming of blush against a sea of freckles, pretty was that quiet, singsong voice always prodding, pretty was a brunette mop, a half-opened mouth, a pink shirt.

Love is dead in 2013, Nathan knows, but on the counter of this dingy diner a woman pours coffee for her husband and kisses him goodbye, and a boy reclines on his Cadillac, blowing kisses at giggling girls, and one girl -blue eyes, freckles- and a boy, -also blue eyes, but no freckles- share a soda pop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my stars, thank you for the kind reviews. Really the reviews make such a difference you don't even know how much they motivate me to write. Even it it's two words, please review. I would also love to hear suggestions or prompts of your choice.


	4. Taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't really see many similarities between Nathan and Sean Prescott, so I imagine Nathan resembles his mother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5 times Nathan’s senses come alive + 1 time where they don’t

“Eat your vegetables, Nathan.”

Nathan pushes around the peas on his plates like a dog herding stubborn sheep into a pen. The peas are so adamant, they bounce off his the prongs of his fork and roll around his dinner plate like billiard balls.

He wishes his plate was like a billiard board, balls dropping out of existence, swallowed by shady corners. Instead, his plate is an animal enclosure, a pea can’t crawl up such steep, porcelain walls.

“Don’t play with your peas, Nathan.”

His mother reproaches him behind a coagulated clump of Financial Times:  _ The Enduring Vitality of Pan Estates.   _ Pan, black and white, perched over Arcadia bay, his flute the tall spires of the lighthouse, devilish smile the craggy cliffs.

From behind her lexeme curtain, Caroline Prescott carves congruent triangles into a strip of bacon. Jagged rows of six, stacked on top of each other, triangles a shark’s smile. 

“Mommy, look!”

A tilt of her wrist, the serrated edge of her butter knife curves, nicking the corner of an otherwise impeccable triangle.

Caroline places her silverware down, fork on left, spoon on right, knife on bottom. The newspaper exhales as the stiff papers are creased in half. Pan, in his monochromatic glory, grimaces from his inverted vantage point. 

Caroline’s hand slithers to Nathan’s plate, barely straining her limber arms. Nathan admires the elegant amethyst wedding ring, bulging on the slim, silver band. In a fluid motion, his mother delicately scoops up the peas like pearls inside a clam and shoves them into Nathan’s mouth.

The amethyst scratches the soft flesh inside his mouth. Violet nails sink into his lips, and Nathan thinks he can taste the burning acetone of her varnish. 

“People who act like animals, get treated as such,” his mother explains as if she were pointing out an error on his math exam. 

Creamy.

Nutty.

Cloying, in the way his favorite candied plums would taste bitter, slowly giving way to sweetness.

Grass in his mouth, the peas taste like a mushy clod of dirt. He gasps around his mother's fist, peas disintegrating in his mouth, the taste of ash, the texture of earth. 

He can’t breathe. He manages a choked gasp around her surprisingly beefy wrist. Every inch of Caroline is petite -though not short- Nathan feels microscopic in comparison. Especially now, when he can only cough around her shapely wrist. 

He doesn’t dare clamp down on her wrist, despite the convulsions wracking his throat. If Caroline sees fit to treat him like an animal over an outburst, he doesn’t dare imagine what teeth marks will entail

Somehow the unpalatable slush of peas slides down his throat, and his mother deliberately pulls her wrist from his flushed mouth like a master retrieving a bone from a dog.

“Good boy,” Caroline says. Nathan nods. On cue, he smiles.

“Thank you, mommy.” Caroline flattens out wrinkles in her newspaper and props the pages up. Nathan’s lips tremble as he aligns his utensils in their correct position. Fork on left, spoon on right, knife on bottom. Oddly enough, Pan still grimaces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thanks for the kudos guys! They inspire me so much. If you have a request, please comment and review! I really, really appreciate the reviews!


	5. Sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why do the whales cry? Nathan looks for an answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the 5 + 1 sense series.

“They’re crying for their babies,” Kristin explains with the casual, self-assuredness that only older sisters have. “Their babies are gone, they’ve been snatched away by mermaids. The mermaids lure them in with their songs, Nate, and then they snatch up the baby whales. So every night the mother whales cry for their missing babies.”

Nathan doesn’t quite believe this. Would mommy cry if Nathan was snatched away, beckoned away by bayside sirens? Kristin doesn’t have an answer to that.

* * *

“They’re just fucking around.” Hayden lights a roach, big and brown like a caterpillar. He inhales and then passes the joint to Nathan. Nathan takes a deep breath, he feels like his yoga instructor turned therapist turned weed man. _Ohmmmmm_. Wisps of smoke curl in the air like pinwheels.

“Nate.”

“What?”

“What did one whale say to the other whale?”

“What?”

“Quit whale-ing.”

Nathan laughs and laughs and laughs, but then he remembers the whale looking for her baby. Then he cries for the baby whale until someone tells him to pass the joint, and so he takes another hit instead.

_Quit whale-ing._

* * *

“Do you think mother whales cry for their missing babies?”

“That would imply that whales have an obligatory developed amygdala to be capable of feeling for their deceased-”

“Nevermind-"

“They’re actually communicating in their own language. Whales are actually from the cetacean family, along with dolphins and porpoises.”

“You don’t have a porpoise.” Weak, but Nathan’s still stoned. Weed has residual effects. Warning, do not smoke weed before your science final. Side effects may include wanting to throw your lab partner throw out the nearest window.

“The sound production varies from Odontocete whales and Mysticete whales. Odontocetes produce clicks from different frequencies, like echolocation. Lower frequencies, for example, are used for long distance communication whereas high-frequency clicks are for shorter distances.”

“I wish I could communicate through long distances. Then I wouldn’t have to share the same space as you.” Somewhat better. The three cups of coffee are starting to kick in. Nathan carefully drops a splash of Hydrochloric acid through a pipette. The solution turns a perfect cobalt- the exact opposite of the magenta the instructions say it should be by now. Fuck. Maybe that was too much Hydrochloric acid? He drops some more acid. The solution turns an even darker shade of blue.

“Meanwhile, mysticete whales, have an overdeveloped larynx which produces the whale sounds. But scientists aren’t still too sure because they don’t have vocal chords-”

“Neither will you, if you don’t shut up, Gay-rahm.”

“But they also have cranial sinuses which should explain it.”

“You’re giving me a cranial sinus, loser.”

Warren laughs and plucks the toxic green (How is that possible. How. He didn’t even fucking touch it and it's gone from Cookie Monster to fucking Kermit the Frog in two nanoseconds) mixture from Nathan’s hands. He grabs a small bottle of Sodium Nitrate and measures out a teaspoon, and another bottle of Potassium Carbonate, and splashes in a couple of drops. Warren swirls the beaker, and faster than Nathan can say Pasta Carbonate, or whatever, the tincture turns a vivid shade of hot pink.

“Well, fuck me.” It’s the weed talking, but Nathan’s impressed. Here was Warren, the nerdiest dweeb on the fucking planet, who had trouble talking with anyone with a set of X chromosomes, mix a batch of acids together in a matter of seconds.

This can lead to two things: an academic scholarship to M.I.T. or a free pass into a high-security meth lab. Maybe even a stint on Breaking Bad?

Mrs. Grant shoots them an encouraging smile. Okay, that’s a lie, she only smiles at Warren and then abruptly frowns as she spots Nathan Prescott, head in his hands, possibly hungover, sniffing a now pollen yellow test tube. Nathan seriously considers minimum wage jobs in unusually fortified drug facilities

* * *

“They are trying to tell us something. Send us a message.”

“What message?” The cool evening air sends a chill down his spine, and Nathan wraps his red jacket around his arms. Cold air comes in from the baggy armholes, and Nathan tucks his sleeves into each other, like an ancient Chinese philosopher about to drop some words of wisdom about how life is like a stroke of ink/grain of rice/porcelain bowl/unfounded stereotype subtly reminiscent of the Land of the Rising Sun.

“Samuel does not know. Samuel only talks to the squirrels.” The janitor sighs, patting the head of a stray squirrel. He drops a peanut and watches the squirrel scamper down the black metal rod of the bench and scoop up the peanut with its dainty claws.

Nathan gets it. He’d talk to squirrels too if he could. They stick around. They don’t call you “crazy” or “fucked up” or “twitch” behind your back, even if they crap all over your shoes. Cute little fuckers.

“Do the whales cry for their babies?” Samuel looks at him, _really_ looks at him as if he sees Caroline and Kristen and Hayden and Mermaids.

“The Whales cry for everything and more.”

* * *

"I like to think that the whales are singing, actually singing.”

“What do they sing about?” Max hums a two-bit tune, the notes rising and falling amidst the chilly October wind. She blushes but continues.

“I think they’re singing for their babies. Like a lullaby, to get them to sleep?”

She leans over and cups his jaws, tracing his dimples. He reaches out and clamps her hand against his skin, fingertips brushing against his cheekbones.

A leaf the color of a cooked sweet potato lands on his head and she snorts. With her other hand, she plucks the leaf from his hair and tucks it behind his ear.

“It’s a flower,” she says giggling as the leaf dwarfs his eyes.

“Ugly ass flower,” he replies. The steam crumples against his scalp, scattering fine orange dust into his hair.

“Your hair looks orange. Carrot top.” She ruffles his hair, scattering crumpled leaves.

He reaches for her abdomen, slender fingers tickling her spine. The sound of her laughter, a patch of warm sun, her warm breath caressing his ears.

* * *

A lullaby for whale babies, a lullaby for whale children.

_Hush little whale,_

_Don’t you cry._

_I’ll tell you the tale,_

_Of a fish lullaby._

“This is what you interrupted me for? A fish? Pick up a book, Nathan and do not bother me again.”

“Well, do they? Do they cry?”

_Do you cry? Do you cry for me?_

“Would you like me to treat you like a fish, Nathan? Would you like me to hold your head underwater in the freezing cold, Nathan? Do you want me to throw you in the middle of the ocean to drown, no house, no name, no nothing? Are you a fish, Nathan?”

The mother whales do not cry for their babies, their babies cry for them. It’s always been that way, you see? The cry because their mothers won’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the mini hiatus!  
> Again PLEASE REVIEW. The reviews mean everything to me or any fanfic writer. I love reading and replying to your reviews! Please make requests, too.


	6. Smell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He presses his fingers against his nose. It still has the smell of pine and earth, the smell of Mark. As he slips his fingers into his pants, his breath quickening like his frantic fingers, he imagines Mark’s fragrance wrapping around him, sleeping underneath a blanket of earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the 5 + 1 sense series

“Hello, Nathan. It’s nice to meet you. Your father has told me so many good things about you.”

The older man beams a welcoming smile, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He extends his hand for a handshake. For a few seconds, Nathan leaves his hands inside his pockets, but a stern glance from his father propels him to promptly grab for the older man’s outstretched palm.

“Good to meet you too,” Nathan replies. The man’s hands are cold but not clammy. 

“Your father tells me that you’re quite the photographer. He’s showed me your work, and I must say, it is nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Very impressive for your age, actually.” He carries the smug smile of a man who’s used to his company lapping up his words. But Nathan’s apathetic front doesn’t falter; Nathan is not a dog. 

His father shoots him another steely look and clenches his hand.  _ Behave.  _

Well, he’s not  _ this  _ man’s dog, at least.

“He showed you my work?” Nathan’s voice cracks like a bolt of lighting. His work, his subjects- a dead dog, rotting behind the Two Whales; the girl in the restaurant, cake and balloons and streamers, but an empty table, save for her bickering parents; a whale thrashing on the beach, wearing it’s resignation like a coat as it stills, allowing the shallow tide to crash against its colossal form for one last time. 

Pieces of Nathan stripped bare for the older man to see. Dull waves of nausea rippled his slender frame as he imagined the older man perched over his photographs, tobacco-stained hands tracing his subjects. Did the little girl cry when she saw the strange man hunched over her, a shadow casting over the diminutive flames of her birthday candles? Did the whale mistake him for a savior, beg him to push them back into the water, the sea only inches away?

He would have rather spread his legs in public, wag his genitalia in the older man’s face like a dog’s tail.

“It’s excellent, Nathan. You have a lot of potential.” The older man pushes his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as if to confirm the credibility of his deep, brown eyes.

_ A lot of potential.  _ That was like complimenting someone on their dishwashing skills or assessing the resale value of a decrepit house.  _ It’s a really nice place with good bones, maybe a touch of paint?  _

“Thank you, sir. You don’t need to flatter me.” And Nathan hates himself, hates that small, needy piece of him that preens at the older man’s praise. The little girl, twiddling her napkin in that empty restaurant, stifling her cries between bites of birthday cake, when along comes a friend, pulling up a chair and handing her a gift-wrapped box. 

“No, no, I’m being perfectly honest,” the older man insists. “In fact, you remind me of myself when I was your age. Of course, I didn’t have anyone looking out for me, those days.” A thinly veiled insult, of course. The older man makes it clear that whatever success and acclaim he’s enjoyed is entirely by his own genius. But Nathan’s used to this secondhand disdain by now; you can’t mutter the name “Prescott” in Arcadia Bay without at least one person muttering “rich bitch,” or “Fancy fucking daddy’s boy."

And yet there is an offer, the promise of a mentor. Nathan has a father, thank you very much, and although he has his share of daddy issues, he isn’t too keen on getting another. Nathan has instructors, tutors for French, art, viola (he refuses to touch the violin out of pride for his fellow indésirables) who don’t even look at him in the eye when they amend his form or correct a past tense. But a mentor? The name implies an affiliation, some sort of bond between teacher and student.

“I’d like that.” Nathan offers a tentative smile in exchange, “I’d like that a lot, Mr. Jefferson”

“Excellent,” the older man smiles back. “Please, call me Mark.”

The older man pulls Nathan into an embrace, the casual slaps on his back distinctively masculine. Mr. Jefferson- no, Mark- smells like heady pine, likely his aftershave, but a strange, chemical scent makes his nose twitch. Acetone? Pledge?

* * *

 

Later that night, as Nathan pulls the sheets over his head, the sensual timbre of Mark’s voice returns to him like a half-forgotten song from a morning commute. 

He presses his fingers against his nose. It still has the smell of pine and earth, the smell of Mark. As he slips his fingers into his pants, his breath quickening like his frantic fingers, he imagines Mark’s fragrance wrapping around him, sleeping underneath a blanket of earth. 

When he finishes, he lays back, satiated in his languor, despite that strange, synthetic odor lulling him to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Jefferson/Nathan piece. I don't ship them in the slightest, but I still think this is an important story to be told, from Nathan's burning desire for validation to Jefferson's subtly seductive manipulation. Part of Jefferson's facade is his charm, he entices Max, and even Chloe into appearing as a suave, older man. I imagine that mature allure coupled with "genuine" concern would have a devastating effect on Nathan. Props if you caught on to "a blanket of Earth."
> 
> As always, PLEASE REVIEW! I LOVE, Love, love reading and replying to every single review. No review is a waste of time, even a simple word is important to me. Don't hesitate to provide feedback! 
> 
> Also, DO NOT HESITATE TO REQUEST. At the very least I can loan an ear.
> 
> For my reviewer, Sci-ence, please know that I am working on your Nathan/Chloe request as we speak.


	7. Sight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan sees the world in black and whte

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of the sense series (5 + 1). Please bear with me guys, I'm trying to make longer, better chapters

Black- Sean Prescott’s bloodshot eyes

2 A.M. and he’s just come back from a business meeting, still reeking of Cabaret. “Fucking Chandra. What does she know? Has that bitch even balanced a check in her life?”

* * *

 

White- Kristin’s big white teeth when she smiles

“Smile, Kristin!” She’s the center of every spring picnic, even the wait staff pauses for a minute while she flashes another lovely grin. Her dimples cut creases in the corners of her mouth, Nathan’s likeness. Angelic in a Vera Wang number, the empire waist cutting her slender figure into a flawless marble figure.

“You always look so beautiful when you smile,” their mother says.

“Big smile, Kristin.” Honeyed words made bitter by their mother’s acrimonious tone. Which makes Kristin smile that much more. The guests are enraptured by her pretty pink mouth, and if they notice her cheeks flushed with strain, they comment on how lovely her blush is.

* * *

Black- Caroline Prescott’s tooth gap

Although most tooth gaps that Nathan’s seen are peculiar- and a bit freakish, he admits- the narrow sliver of space between his mother’s teeth accentuates her impeccable features. Down to her pearly white teeth, Caroline Prescott is completely symmetrical, perfectly proportional.

At dinnertime, Nathan would stare at his mother, deliberately cutting up her roast into congruent squares, chewing the tender flesh with such little movement, as if she were a chess player counting moves. Nathan is wolfish in comparison, scarfing down the roast on his plate, spooning carrots and peas into his mouth.

“Keep eating like that, Nathan” his mother chided, “and you won’t just look like a pig.”

Face burning like a furnace, Nathan sets down his fork. Kristen shakes her head furiously, but Nathan doesn’t pick up the fork again.

“Oink, oink,” his mother snorts.

* * *

 

White- Victoria’s pearl necklace

“It was my mother’s in the eighties,” she quotes. A freshman walks past them, donning a pleated skirt the color of rotten teeth.

“That is the ugliest effing skirt I’ve ever seen.” Nathan laughs, he likes how fluid her movements are, spiteful one minute, tender as a lamb the other. She fingers the ornate beads, luminous in their alabaster sheen. Huddled together like monks, bald heads bent in veneration.

Victoria never takes them off, not even when she fucks (according to Logan, obviously). She insists it’s because they’re too expensive, but he knows it’s because she can never be naked in front of another person, strip any pretense of clothing, decorum, armor. How would her partners know that she was Victoria Maribeth Chase, Blackwell Academy’s Resident Queen, heir to the Chase Space?

Victoria Chase is not a passing fuck in a dingy bathroom, Victoria Chase is not a girl who snaps pictures on a grainy iPhone, she has a Canon - EOS 5D Mark IV camera which she photographs tasteful stills. Victoria Chase is not another girl who leaves her threadbare underwear behind as a souvenir; she is a girl with pearls, at the very least.

Nathan would pierce every inch of his body if it would make him feel less exposed, but nothing seems to do the trick.

* * *

Black- Hayden

It’s Memorial Day Monday, and they’re standing in the line for football tickets for some team with a fish motif (Whales? Dolphins? Sea Cucumbers?). His feet are blistering in his pointy suede shoes, his legs sweltering in his velour black pants, and his neck feels as damp as a mushroom groove. But Hayden hasn’t shut up about the game for months, and when you’ve got thousands of dollars to blow, you might as well put ‘em to good use.

Up above, a blimp glides across the sky as of it were a hockey puck on an endless expanse of ice. He imagines that the crowd looks miniscule from up there, a colony of ants lined up for their Queen.

By the time they greet the ticketer, Hayden is breathing so hard Nathan dimly worries that his (second) best friend will collapse from a heart attack before first quarter. The ticketer greets them with the customary scrutiny of a TSA agent.

“Tickets, please.” Nathan begins to pull out the moist tickets from the cavern of his jacket pockets when the ticketer waves another couple behind them.

“Hey, what the fuck?” Nathan demands. Stonily, the ticketer repeats his demand. Nathan grudgingly hands over the tickets.

“You have I.D.?” Nathan groans, and pulls out his- “Not you.” The ticketer cocks his chin at Hayden.

“What? Why?”

The ticketer shrugs. “That’s just the way it is.”

Hayden complies, fist clenching, then releasing. The seats are fantastic- Nathan cowers every time a football skims past them. Hayden smiles. Nathan reaches over and squeezes Hayden’s hand, still clenched.

* * *

White- Rachel’s tank top

“It’s f-fucking freezing.” Arcadia Bay weather is like a petulant child. Periods of calm, temperate sun, interrupted by frigid fits or sweltering tantrums. After spending his entire life at the Bay, Nathan can never seem to remember to bring a jacket. Like two tall trees, his arms shake as a gust of wind sends sand scattering into his eyes.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Coarse sand scratches his eyes, tall tree limbs frantically rubbing his eyes.

“Don’t be a beach!” Rachel snorts. Apparently, she’s impervious to the cold after just six months here. Either the California sun has preceded its reputation or her flannel is lined with polar bear fur.

“Whatthefuckever,” Nathan mumbles. His jeans are rolled up to his knees, the cold water subatomic on his skin. The winds rips into the water like a bird skimming for fish. A wave smashes into him, the crash of cold water pushing him off his feet. He falls. His ass leaves a dent on the shore when he stands up, brushing stray sand off his butt.

Rachel laughs. Around her, the waves seem to dissipate before they touch her, an infant placated by its mother's coos.

“Oh, fuck off,” Nathan sighs. Still, he can’t fight the smile itching his face at her laughter. He waddles off the mushy sand, heaving himself onto the rocky shore. “Ow, fuck!” the pebbles pinch his elbows when he props himself up.

Rachel pads over to him. Her footprints instantly dissolve the shore washing any trace way from her. _If she were to drown, would anybody find her?_ Nathan shivers.

“Cold?” Rachel plops down next to him. Her arms sweep sand angels.

“The wind,” Nathan lies.

“Here.” She strips away her flannel that clings onto her limber figure, despite being completely dry. She looks like a butterfly bursting out of its cocoon. Or a snake, shedding its skin.

Rachel drapes the flannel around Nathan’s slim shoulders. She sits back, admiring her handiwork. Nathan looks away, fingers digging into his palms to ignore the intensity of her gaze.

“Not bad,” she observes. “You like hella cool now.”

“Hella stupid, you mean.” Nathan flinches. How is it that he never knows the right thing to say?

“Sorry-”

“No, no, I mean it,” Rachel assures. “Like one of my old boyfriends. Chad or Chan or Chase, or whatever.” If it were anyone else, Nathan would shake his head, but it’s Rachel; Rachel who can make things into being, like a magician pulling a coin from a child’s ears. In another reality, he imagines another Nathan, who wears flannels, and says things like “Hella.” Another Nathan who can hold Rachel’s hands, bask on the beach and laugh on cue.

Rachel smirks and raises an eyebrow. Crap, he’s caught staring.

“See anything you like?” She doesn’t bother posing, her body is already splayed out like a model on a magazine cover.

 _Yes._ “Your tanktop.” Two lies, in twice as many minutes. “It’s dirty.” Crescent moons crease his palm, the pain distracting him from his inner cringe.

“Yeah it’s got some battle scars,” She sweeps a hand over her torso, and Nathan pretends to study the frayed tank top instead of the lithe figure underneath.

“Take this, for example.” She points to an apricot splotch on the hem. “The great curry uprising at Panda Express. Dad and I fought for the last piece of orange chicken. I managed to triumph in the end but at a great cost.”

A puzzled stare. Clothes at the Prescott estate are disposed at the slightest frayed edge or speck. _Your mother and I didn’t work so hard so that you could look like you live in a slum, Nathan._

“It was my last white tank top,” she explains. “Here,” she points to a pink spot on the shoulder, “Introduction to watercolors with Mr. Bowski.”

“Was it worth the wound?” Nathan rolls his eyes and plays along.

“I’ll have you know he thought my lily pads were quite tasteful,” she mock huffs.

“How about that one?” He points to a crimson smidgen under her armpit.

Her smile falters. “Stitches reopening,” she resumes.

Nathan doesn’t ask. “Wanna grab some food?”

She thinks. “McDonald’s,” she replies, nodding.  She seems relieved, the tension washed away like debris on the shore.

Nathan knows that there are some stains that don’t wash out.

* * *

Gray- Max’s hoodie

Whenever Max is nervous, she pulls the sleeves of her hoodie over her hands. Except that her hoodie is too small, so the sleeves stop short at her wrists.

“Are you cold?” That would be Trevor, the only other person who could’ve possibly muster enough excitement to watch Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s Halloween, and the drive-through is so crowded and cramped, Nathan can hear the ecstatic moans of an over-enthusiastic couple three cars away. She’s faking it, Nathan thinks. No one can be _that_ happy to give a handjob.

Dana blushes. “No, I’m good.” On cue, a gust of wind rattled their car hood, causing her to shiver. “A little,” she amends.

Trevor smiles and drapes the jacket around Dana’s shoulders. He smiles. She smiles. They kiss. Nathan gags.

Max shivers. “I’m cold, too.”

Nathan shrugs. “Well, shit, Max, I can’t change the weather.”

Max lowers her head. Nathan inwardly groans; he’s no good at this romance crap.

“Um, uh, oh shit, here.” Nathan shrugs off his red varsity jacket and all but throws it at Max. The cars dark enough that she won’t see the scars littering his arms, he hopes.

She’s shaking now.

“Do you wanna go back?”

She throws her head back, a flurry of giggles drowning out his anxiety.

“Nate,” she chokes and then laughs.

And of course, Nathan laughs too.

“I’m horrible at this shit,” he guffaws. He laughs so hard, his head knocks against the car window, which only makes him laugh louder.

He laughs. She laughs. Nathan smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nathan's artistic vision is symbolic of how he sees things: black and white, right or wrong. He's a child, in that way. Life isn't as simple, though and gets in the way.
> 
> PLEASE REVIEW/REQUEST. I really, really get inspired by the reviews, seeing these reviews motivates me to write. I really reply and take heart to every review.


	8. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan traces the tiny trickle of blood on his hand, a minuscule bullet hole. He presses his index finger against the laceration, feeling for traces of his mother’s fingernail. He clings on to a fleck of purple varnish, savoring his mother’s touches, even with the agony they entail. A different sort of pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aren't parent teacher conferences just the worst?

“He’s not a very bright child,” his mother explains, “not particularly sharp, either.”

Dust bunnies on the radiator shoot upwards like a geyser and a warm gust of wind heats the cramped quarters of the principal’s office. Nathan sinks into the cheap velour, stifling in eighty-something degrees weather. The Florida sun beat down on his desk like- he secretly glances at the Principal, bent over his geology exams, studying the tests as if there were a secret code embedded in his wrong answers.

“I’ll say,” concludes Principal Huang. “Look here,” she points out.

“The question was ‘Diamonds are the strongest substance on Earth. True or False?’ Your son wrote, ‘My sediments, exactly.’” 

Nathan coughs and reaches for a tissue. He quietly giggles under the scantily opaque, white veil. 

His mother doesn’t even bother hiding her laugh. When Caroline Prescott laughs, she captivates the universe around her. The dust bunnies zig-zag their descent, quietly snickering. The radiator sputters, erratically spitting hot and cold air. At last, the principal hesitantly joins in, albeit with a reserved and even slightly anxious chortle. 

Caroline languishes her slow, raucous laughter. If it were anyone else, the moment would have already delved into an awkward silence, but Caroline manages to stretch out the moment like a rubber band. Everything around her is tense to the point of breaking, every moment around her was an apogee to cling onto.

_ Snap. _

The tension fractures, and Nathan and Principal Huang have stopped laughing, but Caroline takes her sweet time schooling her features back into a scheming smirk. 

The principal is still smiling, and Nathan can’t help thinking of lambs and slaughterhouses. 

“What’s so funny?” His mother asks. Principal Huang’s face freezes. Principal Huang’s smile pinches together into an O and she presses her lips together. She clears her throat and readjusts a picture on her desk; Principal Huang and her daughter, Nina, celebrating her child’s victory at the state spelling bee. The woman spares no opportunity to boast about her only daughter, even the usual delinquents know about Nina’s latest A+ on her American History essay-  _ Alexander Hamilton: Founding Father or Patriarchal Pariah?  _

But anyways, Nathan doesn’t have any pictures like that at his house. Oh, sure, he and Kristin have posed more for cameras than lost baby teeth- Kristin’s ballet recital, Kristin’s viola concert, Kristin’s debate club- he’s starting to notice a pattern. But always with the careful rigor of a professional photographer unlike the carefree embrace of Principal Huang and her young daughter.

“No, really, I hate missing out on jokes,” his mother smiles. “Is it me?” She fiddles with the picture of Principal Huang and her daughter on her desk, while Principal Huang loosens her ties and clears her throat. It must be the secret language of adults, Nathan thinks. Somehow through a bizarre series of  _ hmms  _ and  _ ahems  _ and  _ huhs _ , the two woman seemed to have reached an understanding. Well, sort of. Caroline coolly regards Angela with a peculiar expression, a certain close-mouthed smile. Principal Huang hunches over, her cocoa-colored mouth quavering, fisting the cheap velour of her reclining chair. 

_ "It’s strange," _ Nathan notes, " _ how his mother could make everyone wish for the ground to swallow them up whole _ ." He’s half sure that his mother could just will someone out of reality as if they never really existed at all.

Nathan turns away from the photograph. His mother notices. She always does. “What a charming little picture,” Caroline comments. Her flippant tone contrasts with her inquisitive eyes. “Is this your daughter?” 

“Yes,” the woman beams. “My Nina has recently won the Florida Spelling bee, you know.” The photo shines, refracting the sunlight into a myriad of blues and purples and reds. Principal Huang adjusted the photo out of habit, the same way some women twiddled their wedding rings.

“How nice,” his mother replies. “I believe my daughter, Kristin took home nationals when she was six. Nathan too, but he was older.”  _ Older.  _ As if he had been eighteen instead of eight, crouching under the crude stage lighting like a deer in headlights. Entire evenings spent reciting words until syllables became nonsensical slush. His legs cramping from standing so long, but his father’s grating gaze, his mother’s twitching hands fingering a leather belt. 

_ Crack.  _

_ “Again, Nathan.” _

_ C-L-A-U-S-T-R-O-P-H-O-B-I-A. _

“I’m sure your daughter is very bright, Principal Huang.” Principal Huang preens at the attention. “ _ Lambs and butchers”  _ Nathan thinks.

“Especially considering how children from single mothers are oft to be hoodlums and simpletons. You’ll keep an eye on her, won’t you?” 

A squeak escapes Principal Huang’s outstretched jaw like a moth under a glass. 

“Of course you will. And if not, I suppose she’ll make a decent enough waitress or escort” his mother concludes, clapping her hands together like it’s a fine idea.

_ I-N-C-R-E-D-U-L-E.  _

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Prescott, but I believe we are getting off topic.” Principal Huang pushes her red spectacles further back up her flushed nose. Fashionable in the 80’s, hopelessly outdated in 2003. The woman sniffs, reaching for the photo frame but quickly transitioning to a stretch at the last minute. 

Nathan grimaces.  _ Don’t fidget,  _ he wants to say. His mother relished on the way people squirmed, like worms wriggling in the dirt, food for the scouting hawk.

“No  _Angela_ , I think we are right on course. Smooth sailing.” Caroline flicks the photo frame with her long, purple nails. Her talons settle on Angela’s daughter, tapping against Nina’s cheerful face. The glass photo frame might as well be cardboard.

“Be that as it may Mrs. Prescott, I think…”

“Oh, you think now? Is that it? I was under the impression that you shoved your core curriculum drivel down your student's throats and made them spew it up a week later?” She taps against the glass encasing menacingly, circling Principal Huang’s daughter.

Nathan quivers. He can’t bring himself to see Principal’s Huang’s flushed face so he pretends to study flecks of paint on his hands, leftover from still-lifes with Mrs. DaCosta.

_ T-R-E-P-I-D-A-T-I-O-N. _

“Saint Catherine’s obliged to follow a state-mandated curriculum, Mrs. Prescott…”

“I believe I explained that my son isn’t very bright…” Caroline drawls. “Children’s minds are like unpolished diamonds.” At this, she grabs Nathan’s hand and squeezes so hard, his fingers turn blue, a parody of maternal affection. 

“Bending a child to your will can be impossible…” she traces the lines on his palm, a purple, prickly nail skimming his delicate flesh. “A child’s obstinacy can be the hardest thing on Earth.” Her fingernail sinks into the center of his outstretched palm like a stick in mud. Nathan shakes, leaving only his hand perfectly still. Oddly enough, he digs his own fingers into his other palm as means of distraction. It hurts, but it’s a different sort of pain. 

_ I-D-I-O-S-Y-N-C-R-A-T-I-C. _

“But with the  _ right _ parenting” -she cuts into his skin- “and with the  _ right _ tools” -she digs into muscle- “you can eventually mold a child into a diamond.” She coaxes a thin stream of blood from the small hole in his hands; water bubbling from a geyser; dust bunnies shooting out of the radiator. 

The center of his palm stings, and only when his mother pulls away does he close his hand into a fist, the diameter of a camera lens. 

“Please don’t be too lenient with him in the future,” Caroline concedes. She reaches for her corduroy purse, out the door in one limber motion. 

Nathan traces the thin trickle of blood on his hand, a minuscule bullet hole. He presses his index finger against the laceration, feeling for traces of his mother’s fingernail. He clings on to a fleck of purple varnish, savoring his mother’s touches, even with the agony they entail. A different sort of pain.

He pushes the violet speck into his wound. A piece of his mother inside of him, something to share with her beside his blood and bones. 

_ M-A-S-O-C-H-I-S-T. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nathan and Caroline and Principal Huang- good times.
> 
> PLEASE REVIEW. I try to read and reply to every review, they mean a lot to me. I also NEED PROMPTS, kind of scratching the bottom of the barrel for inspiration.


	9. Senseless 1/2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people are like anchors, they ground you when you think you might fly away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, people of Earth. I really hope you like this chapter because this might be my weakest chapter yet.

“You have some paint on your face.”

_ No shit.  _

After slipping on a bottle of toxic green Pine Sol in the janitor’s closet, Nathan has managed to do what mortal men can only fathom in their dreams: fly.

For approximately two seconds, that is. Faster than he can curse Clorox-based cleaning supplies, Nathan crashes into three cans of paint, the color of spoiled egg yolk. 

“Areyoufuckingkiddingme?!” he spits out. Yellow paint seeps into his varsity jacket, viscous like the maple syrup on a Two Whales pancake stack.  

“Hey, I think yellow is your color.” Rachel simpers. Swatches of yellow douse the interior of the janitor’s closet, not unlike the scattered sunbeams, breathing golden breaths into the otherwise murky shed. 

“I look like I spent a hangover with Big Bird,” Nathan bites. Cords of yellow paint dangle from the ceiling like spider webs. 

“Hardcore,” she quips. “Do you always thrash that hard on Sesame Street?”

_ “Really fucking sorry, Samuel,”  _ he internally winces as a splotch of yellow lands right on his cheek, leaving a yellow tear in its wake. Yellow lines crisscross the ceiling, the windows, even the six-foot ladder propped against the back wall: a three-dimensional Pollock painting.

And there is Rachel, not a speck of yellow paint on her slim, graceful figure; rather, the yellow paint forms around her body like a hand-drawn halo, a flannel-wearing, feather-earring angel.

Once when Nathan was younger- young enough for visions of strange men-  _ man-  _  with his Polaroids, wearing his black-rimmed glasses like a gun on an officer’s belt- to keep him up at night, but not old enough to flick on a night light, or hide beneath his covers, or slip into his parents bed- which always seemed so spacious even between the shared space of parent's sprawled outlines- Nathan dreamed of a storm.

A storm so powerful, it shoved the city off its feet, sending everything- the school, the diner, the lighthouse- airborne. Entire slabs of concrete littering the ground like spent beer cans in wake of a party, cracked branches brown as cigarette butts, sheets of scrap metal iridescent in their sheen as tin-colored condom wrappers. 

And soaring directly above the storm’s vortex, a bluebird. Dipping in and out of the storm’s eye like a plastic bath toy, blue dot against a black background.

_ “An angel. A storm”  _ Nathan contemplates. “ _ An angel caught in a storm.” _

A gush of warm liquid bleeds through his pants, spreading through his crotch like an oil spill. 

He panics, the momentary epiphany of  _ did I just fucking piss myself?  _ when an altogether acerbic aroma clouds the cramped quarters like smoke. 

_ The goddam Pine-Sol. _

_ Un-fucking-believable. _

When he finally manages to stumble to his feet, the appalling yellow paint has fully embraced the noxious green cleaning solution, creating a revolting substance reminiscent of an afterparty puke.  _ Ready to fucking thrash. _

“Party too hard, or hardly partying?” Rachel raises a single brow, uniform to the last hair follicle.

He gags. The stench is unbearable but addictive. Like pumping his pickup with gas, sipping his first beer, processing a photograph. 

It must be the fumes, because suddenly he’s ten feet tall, slicking his hair back with a yellow hand, confidence surging like an ocean during a monsoon. “This,” he sweeps a paint-swept hand over his soiled clothes, “This is nothing. The party don’t start until Big Bird walks in,” he sings, Rachel’s harmonious alto accompanying his off-key wailing.  

_ Yep. Definitely the fumes.   _

Rachel skirts around him, toeing around a sizable yellow puddle as she grapples for the door handle.

“Aww, come on, leaving the party early?” he coos. 

“Yup. Way too hardcore for me,” she nonchalantly replies, warily eying the door handle.than

“Well, at least give me hug than,” he laughs with outstretched arms. How is that he’s seemingly full of confidence when he’s covered in paint, dancing in the dark like some kind of crazy person; yet unable to choke out a simple hello at a Vortex club party, when his whole outfit costs more than the complimentary bottle service? 

“Nooooo, that’s ok,” she persists, not so discreetly turning the door knob. “Maybe next time, Big Bird.”

“No hug for Big Bird?” Nathan asks, a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and  pubescent Nathan.

“That’s cookie monster, dumbass!” Rachel wheezes. 

He amends his voice one octave higher. “But Big Bird is your best friend, Rachel,” he insists, now a mix between Arnold Schwarzenegger and _ pre _ -pubescent Nathan.

Rachel abandons her escape in lieu of laughter, and Nathan swoops down with his outstretched arms, trapping her in a sticky, syrupy hug.

“Hella nasty!” Rachel yelps, laughing as he smears the repulsive mixture against her favorite flannel. He holds Rachel the same way Kristin would hold him to “make up” after a sibling squabble (him outwardly leaning away as far as possible  _ without _ looking like he was resisting). 

“Oh, great, now we both smell like puke,” Rachel comments. Even the way the paint stains her looks deliberate: a living, breathing Rorschach painting. 

If Rachel is like an anchor, then Chloe is like a hot air balloon, as untethered to reality like a blaze of light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Nathan, you dork. But who can blame him? I mean, who isn't in love with Rachel? But still, he's a huge dork.
> 
> Get ready for some Nathan X Chloe next! Yeah, that'll be a thousand times better than this chapter, hopefully. 
> 
> PLEASE REVIEW. SERIOUSLY EVEN ONE WORD MEANS A LOT. ALSO REQUEST, NEED INSPIRATION.


	10. She's Thunderstorms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Woah, slow down there, Prescott!” She slaps the small of his back hard enough to leave a mark. Crouched over, he coughs, his nasal cavity burning. He hacks and closes his eyes, savoring the sting on his back and the burn in his throat like lips on his neck. 
> 
> “Partying hard?” If it were anyone else (except his parents) they’d be tearing themselves to pieces with concern. She tilts her chin by way of challenge, and Nathan feels a heat stir in him, a fever, a bravado rising like a tidal wave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my beloved reviewer Sci-ence, this piece has been a pleasure to work on. I only hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Screams like Jenga blocks, an amalgamation of frequencies stacked on top of each other into a singular shriek.

A leg here, a hand there. Bodies littering every corner pressed up against each other; arms akimbo, tongues lolling, eyes glazed.

A crack in the glass fractures like lightning, someone cries when they step on a shard. Red, red, red, how could one person have so much blood? People are like balloons, Nathan observes. Big fleshy blow-up dolls, on the precipice, to pop.

They say that when a person dies, they see a heavenly light, beckoning them home.

How dazzling, how blinding.

“Turn the fucking lights down, dumbass!” Nathan roars. Brooke flinches and dims the strobe lights.

God, he huffs. “It’s the end of the FUCKING WORLD, not a fucking-”

“Solar eclipse?” She reaches around his tensed shoulders, plucking the drink out of his hands like an apple from a tree. Tipping the red solo cup at a forty-five-degree angle, his father’s strongest Bacardi slides down her throat like water. Nathan’s eyes fixate on her throbbing pulse, tracing the razor-edged contours. A stray drop slithers down her jaw, free falling onto her trapezius.

“Any problems here?” _Yes,_ Nathan wants to say, suede slacks suddenly suffocating.

“Who the fuck do you think are?” Nathan spits out instead.

Her narrow figure is frustrating, her slim shoulders infuriating. Something about the way she swings her hips in time to the reprise makes his blood boil.

“Too cool for you,” she smirks. And why shouldn’t she? Like a sailor to siren’s lure, he’s entranced by her voice, a purring contralto in contrast to the exceptionally pornographic squeals and squeaks. _Harder, Nathan! Faster, Nathan! Oh! Oh! Oh!_

Still, Nathan feels the need to defend himself against this rude, obnoxious, _attractive_ girl, the same way trees try to stand straight in the face of impossibly powerful hurricanes.

“Well, I’m-”

“Nathan Prescott,” she drawls, flicking her cropped her blue hair with conviction. “Resident asshole, self-proclaimed King of Blackwell, another rich bitch. In case you haven’t noticed, dumbass, everyone in town hates you and your daddy.”

“They like his money.” Nathan gestured to the swarm of tipsy, horny teenagers, rutting like dogs in a public park. It’s true enough, he supposes. After all, Sean Prescott offers a generous hand into the “investment on the upkeep of Blackwell Academy’s long-standing tradition of excellence and the arts.” A student shoves him aside against his bar stool, doubling over and puking the evening’s potation onto the dance floor. “Best. Vortex. Party. Ever!” she shrieks, the room cheering in agreement.

“You mean _your_ money?” she corrects. Nathan snorts. Everything about him, from the ritzy two-piece to the dense marrow in his bones, is Prescott property.

“It’s not my goddam money. It all belongs to my dad.” _And mom_ , Nathan corrects. Technically, the Prescotts were all but a once-polished nameplate before Caroline Prescott waltzed in at his father’s twenty-first birthday -new money and new face- promising billions in exchange for a shot at the family name.

She waves her arm, his eyes trailing after a green vine slithering up to her shoulder. “To-may-to, to-mah-god who the fuck cares?”

Nathan clinks her shot glass in agreement and thanks god she doesn’t say shit like “hit the hay” or “jump on the bandwagon.” He thinks he’d rather be run _over_ by the “bandwagon” than “hit the hay” with a person who probably enjoys reading Hallmark Greeting Cards.

She downs the drink and slams the shot glass on the counter. She siphons alcohol, smooth as jet fuel; Nathan sputters like an ol’ clunker.

_Ol’. Freaking Hallmark Cards._

“I’ll just take that off your hands,” she simpers, narrowly snatching his unaccompanied shot glass.

But because he is eighteen, drunk, and horny enough to prove a point, he pours the drink down his throat. And immediately regrets it.

“Woah, slow down there, Prescott!” She slaps the small of his back hard enough to leave a mark. Crouched over, he coughs, his nasal cavity burning. He hacks and closes his eyes, savoring the sting on his back and the burn in his throat like lips on his neck.

“Partying hard?” If it were anyone else (except his parents) they’d be tearing themselves to pieces with concern. She tilts her chin by way of challenge, and Nathan feels a heat stir in him, a fever, a bravado rising like a tidal wave.

“Hardly partying,” he amends, grabbing a half-empty drink from an unsure freshman who has the misfortune of coming within a five feet radius of him.

“Fuck yeah!” She swipes a bottle of beer, hands fast as hummingbird wings. Her hands grip the bottleneck, deliberately circling the bronze cap like a promise.

“Let’s dance.”

The air is hot and heavy, a tiger’s bated breath.

His shirt collar is a fishing lure, she reels him onto the neon checkered dance floor.

They dance.

They’re fluid like water one minute, the smooth glide of their legs; a crackling fire the next, licking their scorched lips like flames on paper. He catches the flail of her arms while she clenches his legs with her hips.

“Who are you?” Nathan shouts over the blaring techno pop. The strobe lights flash erratically, the lines of her face flickers: confident, sexy, demanding, teasing.

He nips her ear playfully. “So who are you?” he shouts again, the sharp lines of his jaw knocking against her high cheekbones.

“Homo sapien. Probably female” she shouts into the crook of his neck.

“ _Probably_ female?” Nathan flits away from her, the loss of her touch leaving him in shivers. Two can play at this game.

“But when I’m crashing illicit high school parties, I go by Price.”

“Shit, your Madsen’s daughter?” He can’t contain the satisfying smirk that makes his way onto his face when he imagines the security guard’s aghast expression at the sight of a Prescott rubbing up against his step-daughter. He tightens his grip on her waist in silent rebellion.

Her - _Chloe’s-_ face darkens. “He’s not my dad,” she spits. “I want nothing to do with that shithead.” From her alcohol to her small talk- everything about Chloe was as mild as wildfire.  

“Daddy issues?” he snarks. She yanks his hair, pulling him into a bruising kiss. The tension melts from his shoulders, the stifle of small talk discarded in their blind frenzy.

He nips her lips in response. “ _Hella_ daddy issues,” he rasps.

And just like that, she stiffens and Nathan isn’t holding a person, he’s holding an ice sculpture- human popsicle, daring itself to crack under the slightest tap. He doesn’t know whether to hold her or let go, so he does nothing and both. Human hula-hoop, his arms form some sort of cage which doesn’t touch her, but circles her like…

She gives in like a tide crashing against a cliffside, engulfing him with her slender form, hips pressing into his growing hardness, rib cages aligned like two halves of a butterfly, incautious hands pulling at the taut muscles of his back, wandering lower, lower, lower until she squeezes at his- _his wallet_.

Like a bomb in a briefcase during a TSA screening, his wallet bulges painfully apparent and entirely too tangible. If Chloe hadn’t been so overt with her groping, he could have pretended that was his ass that she was grabbing, but when he feels her fingers slip into the folds of his wallet, he crumples in resignation.

Right there, when her nimble fingers finally grasp the edge of a bill, does his ass vibrate. Loudly.

“That’s not…” Nathan trails. He flaps his arms up and down like a hitchhiker who’s just spotted a car on the world’s loneliest highway.

“A vibrator?” she dryly responds. He sighs and pulls out his phone. “I’m sorry I have to take this.” He disappears in the crowd, leaving her standing at the dance floor, beckoning and cocky assurance, the earnest look of a conniving villainess in old school movies. _Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me...aren’t you?_

Predictably, when he returns the mood has elapsed. When they kiss, teeth clashing, lips biting, it’s a frantic grasp to rekindle the heat of a moment gone too soon. He kisses harder, less lip, more tongue. Can she feel the message in his mouth? Can she taste the treachery on his tongue?

Come tomorrow they’ll have nothing to remember each other by, save the absence of things. For him, two crumpled hundred dollar bills filched from his back pocket by the power of those nimble, hypnotic fingers. For her, entire hours, blank space, except maybe a far off click and brief flash. For both, the far-off affinity of what could have been that balmy, October night.

* * *

10/13/13

Sent 11:49 P.M.

Mark: Need more subjects. Now.

Delete: Yes **No**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place pre-LIS, the day Nathan doses Chloe which eventually leads to the bathroom incident. (That explains Chloe's visceral reaction to the word Hella, which is Rachel's word) I do not condone Nathan's actions. However, I would be lying if I said Chloe didn't have her own agenda.
> 
> Chloe needed money. Nathan needed a model. They both got what they needed, but not what they wanted.
> 
> It was a lot of fun writing these two. They're both so dynamic, Nathan can fully embrace his chaotic energy while Chloe can express her brash personality. While I do think that the two might not be great in a relationship because of the general instability and how they might fuel / one-up each other's worst traits, they're the most natural around each other. Although I believe that Nathan can eventually grow comfortable fully expressing himself around Max, I think it would take a while to get there. Whereas with Chloe, he can dive right into being his dickish, embarrassing, convoluted self.  
> Chloe doesn't take any shit either, and I think people are initially intimidated by her. I think even Madsen thinks she's a threat, she's never been afraid to challenge authority and perception. She doesn't have to pretend to be weaker or someone that she's not. Although she definitely intimidates Nathan, strangely enough, that's what makes her so attractive to him.  
> Also, they have this charged sexual energy around them. Or that's what I thought when I was writing them. For all the shit I give Nathan, I do think he is a very sexual person and knows to take action in the right circumstances. Even if he comes out as a huge dork (choking on hard liquor).  
> They're just a force of nature. If they ever do make it work (which I still doubt) they would probably be a power couple. But I'm not sure if power is what Nathan and Chloe need.  
> Thank you for the request Sci-ence!  
> Other readers, be sure to request.  
> And always, PLEASE PLEASE REVIEW. EVEN ONE WORD MAKES ME HAPPY BECAUSE I JUST LOVE EM.


	11. Blue Belladonna, Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr letsmcfreakingloseit: 
> 
> Hanahaki Disease is an illness borne of one-sided love, causing flowers to form and grow in the lungs of the unrequited, the petals coughed up with increasing frequency. If the love is not returned, the flowers filling the patient’s chest will eventually prove fatal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic reeks of incest. I meant incense. Definitely incense. Mmmmhmmm.

The first time Nathan falls in love, he is six and three quarters. Papa says he’s not old enough to even know what love is, but Nathan just knows, the same way he knows that babies come from S-E-X and that the tooth fairy doesn’t leave money under your pillow if you get a cavity. 

Nathan sees her in the park, long legs crisscrossed like applesauce. Perched on a neon green park bench, like an exotic bird in a menagerie. Caught in conversation with an older, uglier woman who crows about her husband’s promotion at the canning factory-  _ eighty-five thousand a year, we’re thinking of finally buying that new Honda Accord!  _

Nathan shoots her a sympathetic wince from behind his sand castles. He crushes a sand tower in his hand, crushing the princess inside into a shapeless clump. In the space between the crow’s  _ my  _ and  _ husband,  _ her eyes meet Nathan’s and she puffs up her cheeks like a pig, pantomiming some large barnyard animal. Nathan hopelessly giggles behind a clumsily crafted spire. 

Nathan is a harsh and totalitarian ruler, prone to maniacal outbursts and exuberant rapture. His loyal subjects are subjected to famine, (Nathan crushes the trading ports between the Sand Castle and Jungle Gym City) floods, (Nathan accidentally drops his unscrewed water bottle, drowning thousands) and invasion from neighboring enemies (Another five-year-old who happened to mistake Nathan’s sandcastle for an elaborate throne. Whether or not this is Nathan’s fault for leaving his kingdom vulnerable is debatable, given that a passing ice cream truck may have been involved). 

Nathan looks back at his newest creation with an air of content. A new watchtower, two feet tall in length, a lookout to warn his citizens from upcoming attacks. Nathan can’t remember the last time he’s been so proud of himself, the last time he hadn’t F-U-C-K-E-D things up like he always does. So proud, in fact, that he wants to share this moment with  _ her. _

It’s an opportune moment: the crow has flown the coop, probably to nag some other unfortunate person about her mediocre suburban exploits, and she is blissfully alone.

“Mommy, look what I made! Mommy, look! Mommy look!”

Caroline Prescott opens her eyes. In a fluid motion, she gets up from the bench and walks over to him.

“Nathan, I’m late for a board meeting, I have to go.” She reaches over and yanks the stray curl on his forehead, the one that never managed to stay in place.

“Look mommy!” Nathan swats her large hands aside and gestures to his sand castles. But when he looks back at them, they look wrong, dilapidated. Were the walls always so slanted? They looked like crooked, rotten teeth. And the spires- they didn’t stand straight and proud, they were the twisted spine of a hunchback. Even the watchtower, in its two-feet tall glory, looks a withered tree next to his mother’s towering form. 

“Hm,” his mother replies, confirming his worst fears. It wasn’t a sandcastle, it was- it was- S-H-I-T. He’d only heard his father say the word once, but somehow he just knew it was the  _ right _ word, the  _ only _ word that could describe this awful feeling, the same way he knew about babies and tooth fairies and love. 

“The nanny will take you home,” his mother says, but by then she’s a million miles away and Nathan can’t find the words to anchor her when she’s already on a different planet.  

Perhaps it is for the best then, that Nathan decides to prematurely end his longstanding reign. With a final, withering look, Nathan kicks over the sand castle. He Imagines the princess in the tower, screaming as rocks crush her delicate head. He sees the royal knights scramble to form a defense as their comrades crumble to dust around them. The royal baker, crushed to death under an oven. The constable, clipped in the head from falling rubble.

* * *

 

The city is under attack! Heavy rain, slides off their Benevolent Ruler’s cheeks, turning everything to mush.  _ “Stop,”  _ the citizens plead.  _ “Please stop.”  _ But their Benevolent Ruler is deaf to their cries, an unstoppable force of destruction. He knocks down steeples like saplings, crushes entire villages under his boots.  _ “Please stop,”  _ they plead once more.  _ “Haven’t we pleased you? Haven’t we made you happy?” _

* * *

 

"Stupid, stupid,” Nathan mumbles. He kicks the last tower down until there is nothing left of his kingdom, no citizen left alive.

He’s still kicking by the time he realizes his chest is on fire. It’s a slow throb at first, echoing the steady drum of his heartbeat. It throbs and then grows into an increasingly painful ache that seems to rip from his heart, punching the oxygen out of his lungs.

Nathan doubles over, the ache spreading to his entire chest until every breath becomes a spasm, and he convulses in the sand pit. 

_ “Am I having a heart attack?”  _ he thinks, loudly. Quieter still, “ _ Am I going to die?” _

The throbbing agony intertwines in time to his breathing, until every spear of pain is matched with a gulp of precious air. The realization hits him, he can’t live without this pain.

He is six and three quarters and he knows that he will spend every waking moment with this pain, this pain has become part of him now, part of his blood, bones, flesh. 

He can’t fathom life without this sweet, clawing agony that nourishes some needy,  _ wanting  _ fragment of him, that just aches because in his bones he knows that this is- this is...

An itch in the back of his throat bubbles over like a geyser and he spits out a flower petal. Purple, with yellow pupils, small as his thumbs.

Petals fall out of his mouth, spots of purple like blood in the sandbox.

_ So this is love.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably isn't the type of story anyone wanted to read when the prompt was Hanahaki disease but it went this way. I don't ship Nathan and his mother. But I do think he shares an unrequited love with her. Are there undertones of incest? I don't know. Trying to pick Nathan's brain is like trying to pug a hole in the ozone layer with a post-it. 
> 
> I made the flower specific to whomever Nathan falls in love with. In this case, the Balladonna. Poisonous and purple, Carolyn's two defining traits. 
> 
> Shout out to my faithful reviewers sci-ence and sparkle94 who always leave such wonderful comments. Kudos to those who give kudos!
> 
> Please REVIEW! Leave comments about what you want to see next! PLEASE.
> 
> PS my Tumblr is my author name.


	12. High Tides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Autumn is the shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Corbin Nugent. This story was your request. And it kicked my ass. But thank the stars, I did it. And I didn't even realize how much I loved it until I was done with it. Pricescott is growing on me. It's a pain in the ass to write, and more than often it leaves me banging my head against the wall, but then I finish, and I am so, so proud of these two disasters. Of course, there is more Caulscott to come.
> 
> Disclaimer: Most of this dialogue comes from Before the Storm. Which I do not own. Or profit off of. This is a fanmade work, only for entertainment purposes.

_Autumn is the shit._

Pumpkin spice, new paper smell of notebooks, even Principal Well’s alcoholic breath was a million times better than the dry, desolate hellhole that was Fort Lauderdale.

Summer was the season the city would deteriorate into a cacophony of jeeps packed bumper to bumper, en route to Hollywood, New York City, Grandma’s house in buttfuck Tallahassee. Grocery receipts, long as arms, fanning soccer moms as they sweated to high hell in cramped, steel stadiums.

_Autumn is the shit._

Every woman over the age of thirty-five had dyed their hair that same awful shade of red, licorice leftover from last Halloween. Their hair would stick to their fake tans, Twizzlers melting into tacky, golden caramel.

 _“I’ve been really looking to try something new and well, this color was so cute, I couldn’t help myself…”_ Hungry for a thrill, heat in the air, sweating, shaking, quivering men and women burning. Smoldering.

_Autumn is the shit._

Fort Lauderdale and all its torrid occupants would have ripped each other to pieces if it weren’t for the humidity. Thick as tree sap, the humidity was like glue, holding everyone in place from bolting out of their seats.

Humidity made the community sleepy, even more than their usual suburban stupor. Even his father would trail off in the middle of his sentences, adjourn meetings because of “family time,” getting up from his chair twice as long to stretch his limbs.

“Enough slumming Nathan, get your trucks on in the next ten minutes.” Only his mother remained unphased, arctic winds radiating off her like a typhoon. More than tolerate, Caroline was the rare species of woman who seemingly thrived in the sweltering heat, perched on the edge of her heels like a cat on a branch. She devoured ice cream cones without a drop landing on her knuckles, glistened rather than sweat, calla lily perfume more pungent in lieu of the barnyard stank that so many other Floridians had grown impervious to.

_Autumn is the shit._

Nathan counted down the days until school began with on his pug-themed (birthday gift from Victoria) calendar. He’d marked September 1st with not one, but two red circles.

_Autumn is the shit._

Those hot, summer days where he would drift in and out of perpetual sleep and dream of Victoria’s quiet snickering, Hayden’s careless one-armed hugs.

_Autumn is the shit._

And then came a meeting: him, his therapist, his parents. Words like “teammates,’ and “character building” and “homosexual inclinations.”

_Autumn is the shit._

“Your mother and I are signing you up for football, Nathan. It’s time we nip these so-called ‘inclinations’ in the bud.”

_Autumn is shit._

On and off the field, his sixty-seven inches ached to the point where he couldn’t even lift his camera. And the rare occasion he could…

“You know something, Prescott? I’m gonna do you a favor. You can’t be a part of the team and be into this stupid crap at the same time!”

“Give it back!” he lunged for the portfolio, tantalizingly out of reach so that his fingernails could skim the laminated cover. Which wouldn’t survive a dunking in the school’s marble fountain.

“You’re a piece. Of. Shit. I’m going to kill you.” Fight or flight: does he sink his nails into Drew’s meaty throat and strangle him or does he sprint in the opposite direction, running and running until he leaves fucking Arcadia Bay behind?

Neither, apparently.

“Back off, idiot.” Big words coming from a girl half his body weight (Drew’s obviously. Nathan spent half the day chewing ice and biting his nails). Stained white t-shirt and patchy denim jeans, she is exactly what he needs right now, the answer to his silent prayers.

“What the hell did you just say to me?” He doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until Drew lets go of his sweater and the air diffuses out of him like a bag of chips (Vague traces of salt from last to _last_ years July Fourth BBQ, back when he could stomach the grease).

“Back off, as in go away? No one’s interested in your crap.”

 _“You’re seriously defending Nathan Prescott?”_ he thought. The only people who defended him were the other guys on the team, who knew better than to let anyone hurt the son of the school sponsor and get his neck snapped by guys who had a hundred pounds on him.   

“You’re seriously defending Nathan Prescott?” _Oh great,_ now he was sharing thoughts with Drew North, Blackwell's resident Neanderthal.

How about picking on someone your own size? Which I hear is pretty small.” Nathan bits into his lips, blood distracting him from the turning twitch of his mouth.

“You’re such a crazy freak! Mind your own business.”

“What’s crazy is that you haven’t been held back yet. How is that possible?’ “ _Diversity scholarship,”_  Nathan cringes. Sean Prescott’s way of showing that Arcadia Bay had turned over a new leaf by cherry picking tokens for football championships played over ancient Native American burial grounds.

“You want a piece of this?”

“You mean your budding bromance with Nathan? You’re clearly into him, just pull his hair already.”

Nathan’s stomach drops faster than the nighttime temperature in the Sahara. Bitter laughter threatens to spill out of his mouth. How is it that playing football made him appear _even gayer?_

“Did you just laugh?” A girl Nathan didn’t even notice giggles behind Chloe’s back. She’s short, with brown hair....and honestly so uninteresting that Nathan forgets about her pretty much the minute he lays his eyes on the other girl, smirking in victory.

“Guess you got lucky this time, Prescott. Had two girls show up to save you.” Drew slumps away, probably to beat off to sunkissed cheerleaders, or whatever the hell football players did in their spare time. Of course, he doesn’t notice, his eyes preoccupied watching _that girl_ basking in her conquest, shoulders pulled back for a punch. So much so, he almost doesn’t notice her leafing through his portfolio.

“You think I need help? From you?” Red hot poker in his chest, he sees red, snatching his portfolio from her hands.

She places her hand on his chest and it feels like a lifeline, he thinks “ _Please don’t let go.”_ And shoves.

He stumbles back from the force of those nimble hands, doesn’t even register the concrete until the slab tears through his back pocket. He lays back on the cool stone until the world pixelates into focus, 240, 480, 1080 HD.

“Try a thank you, asshole.” For the second time that day, his portfolio dangles out of reach.

“Thank you, asshole,” he retorts as he sits up.

“Ugh. yeah, fuck you too, Prescott,” she spits. But she doesn’t throw the dossier at his feet, handing it to him instead. He takes the portfolio as he pulls himself off his feet.

“It’s mutual…” His brain flashes through names: Kelly? Caroline? Kale? “...you,” he finishes lamely.

“Ohhh, nice try, jeopardy. Do you want to buy a letter?”

“I’ll take unfunny, obnoxious teenage girl for twenty.” He clutches the notebook to his crotch, his pants shrinking by the minute.

“Bzzzzttt! Wrong answer, genius. Why don’t you phone a friend? If you have any.” She stepped towards him, observing how the strong lines of his shoulders contrasted with his delicate hands.

“How about a hint?”

“Here’s one: fuck off.”

Nathan can safely say that he wants to do one of those things.

“Or what?” He pushes, she pushes.

She’s in his space, breathing his air, breathing him in. He licks his lips. She looks at his tongue.

“Nathan, are you ok?” His arms reach out to her, and her forearm is locked, and _Bang!_ Her back hits the brick wall and he slams against a dogwood tree. He sees red again, but for a different reason.

“Whatthefuckever.” He propels himself away from the tree and slinks off towards the boy's dormitories, portfolio a paperweight in his hand.

“You have a leaf on your ass!” she shrieks.

“Whatthefuckever!”

“We should go, Chloe. It’s getting dark.”

She folded the photograph into halves, quarters, eighths, discreetly slipping it into her back pocket. Vibrant even in black and white, her father’s beat-up orange jeep seemed to rumble to life the way it once did when her father would rev up the engine before an ice-cream run, and then to surprise Joyce at work. Before the accident.

“Um...yeah. Right behind you, Samantha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, there it is. This is the first time I wrote in a perspective other than Nathan. Actually, this is the first time I wrote from a female perspective. I did it to show a mutual attraction between Chloe and Nathan. Will I do it again? Probably not. I'll just stick to Nathan's head for now. Familiar, if strange territory. 
> 
> If you played BTS, then you noticed a photo of Nathan on the football team. He looks fucking miserable. As soon as I saw it, I knew this was the works of Sean (and possibly Caroline) Prescott. Like hell, Nathan would join the football team. He's an artist for fuck's sake, he snaps pictures, not other kids' wrists. My take? His insecure parents enrolled him because they feared that his interest in the arts meant he was gay. Not that there's anything wrong with being gay, but you can be a perfectly straight teenage boy and like art. Fuck stereotypes. Fuck 'em with a rusty chainsaw. (Though personally, I think Nathan might be bi, but still).
> 
> Also the bit about the diversity scholarship? Not in any way racist, or meant to have racist intentions. MANY times elite schools cherry pick certain minorities to fulfill a certain quota under the pretense of NOT being racist while simultaneously discriminating against other minorities. EVEN WORSE, 9 times out of 10 they chose minorities for sports scholarships, which they in turn profit off of as school athletes DO NOT make money, therefore already exploiting an underprivileged few EVEN further with unpaid labor. Y'know, rather than properly extend opportunities to reaching minorities through investment or social consideration of qualified candidates. Even typing this makes me angry. Ugh.
> 
> Also, this story is chock full of references. Kelly-Caroline-Kale is a ref to ch 1. 
> 
> As always, PLEASE REVIEW! COMMENT! I DON'T BITE, I PROMISE! REQUEST!


	13. Lot of Starving Faithful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I am pregnant,” Nathan thinks. “I am pregnant. In nine months a baby will pop out of my pseudo-vagina because I am pregnant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So marks the transition into more experimental chapters I'm trying out.  
> Beware, this makes full use of its trigger warning. 
> 
> PS: Chapter title from "Take Me to Church" By Hozier. Don't own.

Killing is a hungry work, Nathan discovers. The evening after the incident, he feels something crawling in his stomach. There is only one explanation. He is pregnant.

_No, no, no that’s impossible._

But then he thinks of Mark, tobacco-stained hands pulling on the collar of his varsity jacket, brushing a lock of hair on the back of his nape. He thinks about _after,_ the ache in his legs that screamed when he stumbled to his feet. He thinks about _later,_ purple pocks, a kitten’s paw prints, here on his neck, there behind his knee. One behind his elbow, he only sees that when he reaches for the whale-printed coffee mug (You’re a Great Catch! - Courtesy of Victoria) in his top cabinet. He thinks about _next,_ the damp spot on his crotch he assumed was piss.

“But, no, it’s not like that,” Mark explained. “It would be a shame to miss out on such a rare photo opportunity. At least something good came out of your fuckup.” Nathan remembers the way his tobacco-stained hand squeezed his shoulder. How long had he been waiting to be touched like that, the touch of a man who knew what to do and how to fix things and how to break things.

He wishes he could have been a man like that. Men like his father, who made meetings and canceled them; as if _meetings_ was a planet of suit-wearing specimen, running in and out of buildings to the tune of indecipherable elevator music. Men like Mark who laughed at women just at the right tempo so they couldn’t tell he was laughing _at_ them. Men like Mark, who could shake hands with Sean Prescott and then smooth over Nathan’s hair just the way he wanted to.

Jesus, those hands. _If only the world could know the power of those hands._ Hands that could slap your skin raw before soothing it with feather-light brushes. _The entire sorry world would have turned on each other to feel those hands._

Bad news is like day old oatmeal: it takes a few tries to swallow it, and a couple more to digest. “ _I am pregnant,”_ Nathan thinks.  _“I am pregnant. In nine months a baby will pop out of my pseudo-vagina because I am pregnant.”_

There’s only one thing to do now. 

* * *

 

Closed. Again. The fucking McDonald’s across the street is open 24 hours, but trying to find a CVS at 5 A.M. is like trying to carve Mt. Rushmore with a toothpick.

“Can I help you, sir?” The cashier is either an easy fifty-two or hard thirty-five. She’s flipping through a magazine ( _Ten Steamy Sex Positions to Make Sure He Never Leaves You!),_ thinking about her man who already has his bags packed.

“Where do you keep pregnancy tests?” Surprisingly, that doesn’t prompt her to even lift her eyes.

“Third aisle on the left,” she indicates with her chin.

 _“Low Sodium!”_ racks of pre-popped popcorn call to him, white two-ounce bags lined up on the shelf like teeth. “ _Fat free! 100 Calories!”_ It takes all his willpower to not tear into the plastic bags. He can taste the salt of the popcorn on his tongue, pillowy curves of the fluffy kernel melting in his mouth.

His stomach crawls. There it is again, that’s right- “ _I’m pregnant,”_ he reminds himself. He steers himself towards the family planning aisle.

The pregnancy tests come in white, pink, blue, no line, double line. How strange that there were so many options for an ultimately choiceless outcome. He grabs them all.

Before he leaves he spots a shelf of Trojans and snorts. _“I won’t be needing these anymore.”_ But he grabs a box anyways. _“Just in case.”_

The cashier is flipping through a different magazine ( _Eight Tantric Poses to Unleash Your Inner Goddess!)_ resigned to the paltry fate that is her love life. If Nathan didn’t have it so shitty right now, he could almost spare her a sympathetic glance.

“I’ll take all of these,” he unceremoniously dumped the contents of his basket onto the conveyor belt.

She swipes the boxes under a firetruck red scanner, not once meeting his eyes. “That’ll be 34.99.”

He slaps a fifty on the counter. “Where are your bathrooms?”

Finally, she looks up from her magazine. “We don’t have any bathrooms.”

* * *

 

Nathan drives to the one place that’s open at- he pulls over and checks his phone (huh, what do you know, Nelson Mandela kicked the bucket)- 5:22.

Pulling into the cracked parking lot, the smell of fried food hits him, hot off the greaser. He follows the scent past the homeless woman who greets him with her half-open smile, past Frank who’s surprisingly placated, nursing a plate of beans.

He’s about to slide into his usual booth when he remembers the transparent bag of pregnancy tests (and one box of condoms) in his hand.

“No outside food, Prescott.”

Nathan jumps at the voice, but to be fair, even the sound of water dripping from a faucet makes him jump these days. Joyce Price, no _Madsen,_ drums her fingers against a table, a shark’s territorial gaze.

“Can I use your bathroom?” Nathan practically shoves her out of the way, but he feels a strong hand yank him by his sleeve. His arm practically pops out of place as Joyce snarls.

“Sure thing. And I suppose you’d like a metal spoon too?”

“I’m not going to do any drugs!” _This time._

“Order something or scram Prescott. I have real customers to deal with.” She throws him a menu, snapping her sapphire high heels before he can respond.

For $5.50, Nathan could have some Homestyle Eggs & Bacon, for a dollar more, a Bigfoot Bacon Omelette. His stomach lurches at the word omelet, groaning in protest by the time he gets to the Belgian Waffles or Fresh Oatmeal and he doesn’t even like oatmeal. Goddammit, can’t they see he’s pregnant? _I don’t have time for this._

And even if he did, he couldn’t possibly eat an entire plate of this, this _fat._ He couldn’t even eat an entire plate of salad, dressing on the side. He doesn’t even want to order a cup of coffee, not when he’ll swell like a water balloon attached to a fire hose.

But if he’s really pregnant…

_“Fuck it, I’m going to get fat as hell anyways.”_

He sees himself waddling like an Emperor Penguin, bulbous belly knocking into walls, children, tables. He clears his throat. Jester popping out of a box, Joyce looms over his booth like a wary owl.

“Belgian waffles,” he decides.

“Fine,” she says as she rips the menu out of his hand. He stops himself short from muttering some unsavory expletive as the woman is known for her preternatural sense of heating.

Sunlight pours in from the bay window. Fishermen shuffle their nets out of the parking lot, loading crates into stationary sailboats. The wind howls, a steady crescendo, Arcadia Bay opening its sleepy eyes.

“ _Smack!”_ A streak of blue flashes in Nathan’s peripheral vision. Berserk and bewildered, a bluebird smacks into the window, crashing against the glass. Blood streams from its beak, delirious in its pain, it continues to bang against the window.

“Fuck off!” Nathan urges, smacking his menu against the window. “Fucking scram!”

Bits of cartilage poke out from the blue bird’s broken wings, but it continues its self-inflicted torture. “Get lost!” Nathan roars. He bangs against the window, voice hoarse, but the bird throws its mangled body against the window, and Nathan can hear bones snap and-

* * *

 

_“Fuck, fuck FUCK What’s wrong with her? Oh my god, Mark, she’s fucking shaking!”_

“ _Just hold her down Nathan.”_

“ _I can’t she’s having a fucking seizure, oh god, what do we do? What did we do?”_

 _“What did_ **_you_ ** _do Nathan. This is your fault.”_

_“No, No, No, that can’t be possible, I didn’t touch her-”_

_“This is your fault, Nathan. All your fault.” A sharp sting in his jugular. Then, blackness._

* * *

 

“Do not break the glass!” Joyce Price smacks his hands away from the window, slamming them against the table. “Just sit still, eat your goddamn meal and go!” She slides a steaming stack of Belgian waffles onto the table as if it were a dirty tissue.

“But the bird-”

“What bird?” she quips, gnashing her teeth. Nathan gestures to the window. Which is clean. Spotless, really.

“There was…”

“Save it” she barks. “As soon as you eat your damn food, you get out of this establishment. Are we clear?”

“I need to use the bathroom.” Joyce sucks her teeth and Nathan is vaguely reminded of his third-grade geology teacher that smacked him with a textbook.

“In. The. Back.” Her eyes are scrunched shut as if the sight of him is an insult. Nathan grabs his bag while the older woman seethes in fury.

He imagines the word PREGNANT rolling around in his head like a Magic Eight Ball. Yes? No?

* * *

 

Negative. Negative. Negative. Pregnancy tests, elongated white sperm, litter the ground.

_I’m not pregnant._

Why do those words hurt so much? Why can’t he say them out loud?

_They’re wrong. They’re all wrong._

Nathan rips through the pink box of pregnancy tests and then the blue ones and then all of them. He doesn’t know how he has that much piss inside him, but he manages to urinate on all ten of them.

One line, the flat death on a heart monitor.

Ten pregnancy tests. One line. No baby.

 _It’s not true._ He screws his eyes shut. “IT’S NOT TRUE!” Nathan catapults the pregnancy tests against the stall. They clatter to the floor. Ten long sperm on the ground and still no baby.

There has to be a baby, _there just has to be a baby._

He’s been getting so fat lately. Mark won’t say anything, but the crinkle at the edge of his lips tells him all he needs to know. He can’t feel his ribs anymore. He imagines his ribs like sailors at sea, drowning under an ocean of fat. He’s just been so hungry since then.

Human vacuum cleaner, Nathan inhales anything put in front of him. The other day at lunch, half a hotdog and twenty-two baby carrots. The day before that, Victoria’s leftover spring rolls, and not one, but _two_ tongs of schezwan noodles.

He’s such a slut for food. He’s such a slut, period. If he hadn’t been such a slut then maybe Mark wouldn’t have seen him and Rachel, maybe Mark wouldn’t be so angry, maybe Mark wouldn’t have to put them both to sleep.

“ _It’s only fair, Nathan. I told you over and over, don’t touch the girls. Well, it’s time someone taught you to keep your hands to yourself.”_

So you see, he has to be pregnant, he just has to be. Mark’s inside of him, and his stomach has been so needy lately, ergo he’s pregnant.

If he’s not pregnant, what good is he? He’s a fuck up, it’s all his fault. He thinks of Rachel, spasming on the linoleum floor. He needs to bring life into this world to even out the scales.

He imagines all the world’s people on one side and Rachel on the other. Without her the world careens off-balance, destroying everybody. His world, plummeting towards free fall, Max, Victoria, Hayden, Rachel, Chloe, even Gay-rahm.

There’s an imbalance in his world, a vacuum of empty space where _Rachel Amber_ existed, a Rachel shaped hole in his life he needs to fill.

Nathan bangs his head against the stall door. Back then, he hadn’t understood what propelled the blue bird to beat itself to pieces, smash what was left of its body to bits.

Atonement.

The world is falling to pieces around him because Rachel’s gone. Why should the sun rise when Rachel can’t feel the light on her face? Why should the whales swim when Rachel can’t feel the sand mush under her feet? Why should the bluebird fly when Rachel can’t look up at the big, blue sky?

Why should Nathan be allowed to cry into a public toilet when Rachel’s dead and buried with the shit?

 _“He has to make things right,”_ he tells himself while he splashes water on his face.

He throws open the bathroom door, ignoring the diners puzzled glances. He takes his Belgian waffles to-go, dropping the styrofoam box in front of the homeless woman. He climbs into his Jeep, bones groaning when he sits up straight.

There it is again, that cavernous lurch of his stomach. He ignores it. He can’t bring Rachel to life, he knows. He can’t even bring life into this world, grow a child in Rachel’s image.

If Nathan can’t atone for his sins through life, he’ll find redemption in death. He merged onto the highway, allowing the gnawing pain to wash over him, killing him slowly.

“What do serial killers eat for breakfast?” the voice from his tinny car radio jokes.

“Not cereal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's the diagnosis, doctor?
> 
> Nathan's not pregnant. He is, however, in denial.
> 
> He's in denial of his eating disorder. He's obviously restricting food to the point where even carrot sticks seem like french fries to him, not having his ribs poke out is a sign of being fat. He's an anorexic and he sees food as fat instead of fuel. He's so alienated from eating that he assumes hunger pangs are a sign of pregnancy. Which brings me to his next point.
> 
> Nathan's in denial of his sexual assault. In one of the photos Jefferson took of Nathan and Rachel the day Rachel died, Nathan is unconscious and there is a strange, faint, but unmistakable stain on the front of his jeans. The way Nathan holds himself and his posture among other signs denote sexual assault. It got me thinking, if Jefferson didn't touch the girls because of innocence, would that mean he condemned the lustful? He killed Rachel (it was his dose, which I'll further explain) who probably had sex with him, shot Chloe because he didn't see any value in her (she flirted in front of him and made subtle sexual advances) and I don't think Nathan is a virgin by now. If Jefferson couldn't kill Nathan (yet) does that mean he would take out his anger in other ways? 
> 
> I also wanted to break the stigma of male sexual assault, as sexual assault does happen to young men by people they know. Nathan isn't coping with his sexual assault. Instead of seeking help and therapy, he becomes so disillusioned that he imagines that he is pregnant as a result of aforementioned sexual assault. He is ashamed and he blames himself and degrades himself. The only way he can handle his sexual assault is by imagining he's bringing a baby into the world so that some good would come out of this fucked up situation.
> 
> Finally, Nathan is in denial of Rachel's death. I fully believe Jefferson killed Rachel. When Jeffershit doses Max, she WAKES up during the session and he even stumbles and is about to admit that HE dosed Rachel. In LIS, Nathan still clings onto Rachel's memory so I don't think he accepts she's dead. He wants to atone for her death by bringing a child into the world and fill up a Rachel shaped hole in his life.
> 
> Subconsciously, he knows this is all impossible. But denial is a powerful drug. And Nathan is so far down the rabbit hole, he's willing to believe anything to live with himself. And so he punishes himself.
> 
> AS ALWAYS, PLEASE REVIEW! UM I REALLY APPRECIATE WHEN YOU GUYS REVIEW! AND REQUEST SOMETHING!


	14. Saudade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How can this be love-making? How can this be that magical word entailing sparks and fireworks and slow motion when everything sounded so violent? As if it were a confrontation, an aggressive tug of war, screaming and spitting and swearing. He can’t imagine why anyone would want to spend two minutes doing this, much less an entire afternoon.

3: 35 A.M. The day after Valentine’s, post-coital commotion from half-asleep couples, trickling through daybreak like a forgotten faucet. All is silent in the Prescott Manor, the maid, the cook, and even the gardener dismissed on account of the holiday. Even his slow, labored breaths -nasally twinge from a not-yet-recovered cold- are less exhalations than they are evaporation, the muted dissolution of plants.

Nathan could be a plant. He is the sweet acacia tree squatting outside Kristin’s window. He has to be thin, thin enough to squeeze between the cluster of Cyprus that threaten to overtake him with their gnarled, sinuous roots. He has to be sturdy, sturdy enough for Kristin to climb out her window and escape, Rapunzel fleeing from her tower. But most of all, he has to be silent.

He stifles his wheezing with his hand, puffing through his nose like a sputtering tea kettle. _Shhhh._

He has to be quiet, but how can he when everything in his bones is a cacophony of alarm clocks, all gone off at once? Knuckles cracking like microwave popcorn. Teeth, clacking; fingers, twitching; nose, scrunching; _why can’t I just be quiet?_

_Why can’t you just be quiet, Nathan?_

“Oh, god!”

Faithful words, this evening’s- morning’s- entertainment.

“Oh fuck, baby!”

 _Fuck._ Nathan frowned. His father said that a lot when he was angry. At him.

“Fuck, fuck, fuuuck…”

 _Love making._ He was seven years of bruised knees and pale skin that never seemed to soak in the Florida sun. Wedged in between two dog-eared copies of Business Insider was a cheap dime store smut so tawdry, it almost did not want to be found, painfully aware of its gaudy neon font and poorly photoshopped cover: a too-beautiful couple, scantily clad in strategically placed fabric. Compensating for its glaring shortcomings by blending in with its more cultivated colleagues. He felt a startling sense of sympathy when he pulled the bodice ripper off the self.

“Yeah, just like that, just like that, just like that!”

 _Love making._ How different it was from the other words on the page, how unlike it was compared to _moan_ and _thrust_ and even _fuck._

 _Love making._ As soon as he heard it, he knew that was the one thing he’d want to do for the rest of his life. Entire afternoons spent lovemaking; Nathan Prescott, Professional Love-Maker.

“Baby, Fuck!”

Nathan whines into a sweat-clad palm. He knows he should be happy. Well maybe not _happy,_ but like, _content._ Kristin says that couples who don’t “do it” anymore end up divorcing. And if they don’t, they get “mistresses.” _A mistress?_  It even sounded spartan, military man breathing down your neck, _drop and give me twenty, soldier!_

He couldn’t imagine managing three peoples hisses and blows when he couldn’t even appease two. And yet…

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, take it!”

How can this be _love-making?_ How can this be that magical word entailing sparks and fireworks and slow motion when everything sounded so violent? As if it were a confrontation, an aggressive tug of war, screaming and spitting and swearing. He can’t imagine why anyone would want to spend two minutes doing this, much less an entire afternoon.

“Oh, yesssss…” Alto murmur chiming into a chanting baritone. His mother was always quiet, the demure soft spoken-ess of a Judy Garland or an Ingrid Bergman. Even in the throes of pleasure, she is no louder than a whimper. Nathan is deafening in comparison, huffing and puffing like a steam engine.

_Why can’t you just be quiet Nathan?_

“Ahhhhh...”

Hidden under his bed is a treasure trove of the utterly obscene and absolutely depraved objects of his lust. A pair of panties, worn; a bottle of his mother’s Eau de Toilette, empty; a magazine titled “Oregon’s Best Boobs,” crinkled.

Of course, back then he supposes it wasn’t about sex. Just things that stuck out to him, like too big teeth. But looking back at it now: the underwear, the porn (which he still kept under his bed) maybe it always was about sex then, lingering in his mind like a lullaby- not that his mother ever sang lullabies.

But where does that leave the perfume?

“Oh, oh, yesss.”

So that’s it then. He’s a pervert. He imagines the degeneracy gene or some spot, smudging him like a birthmark. Perversion written on his skin, perversion embedded in the double helix of his DNA.

* * *

 

“What are you thinking about?”

Nathan gasps into the crook of Max’s neck, inhaling her wildflower scent, hollyhock a day after spring showers. Burrowing in her nape, he licks the thin sheen of sweat and nibbles the soft skin beneath. Another hickey, a petunia’s purple stain, litters her neck, her clavicle, all the way down to the apex between her thighs.

He tries to say something in response, but how can he when his heart feels like it’s being squeezed in her small hands? He wants to keep inhaling her earthy scent, let it permeate into his body, lei lines blossoming from his nostrils.

“Wha,” he gasps, “What?”

“What are you thinking, Nathan?” Guilt clogs his throat like syrup. How can he possibly be preoccupied when he can feel her breathy gasps against his necks, the goose pimples on her bare legs. He reminded her of a certain flower, _touch-me-not,_ that would curl up and close like a baby’s fist whenever he’d run his fingers down its stem.

“Sorry,” he wheezes. “It’s just…” He can’t catch his breath, his lungs rattle like a pair of dice- _why can’t you just be quiet Nathan?_

“Don’t be.” And then he isn’t. And he doesn’t know how he lived with himself for so long without those two words.

The _sorry, sorry_ bubbling at the back of his throat fizzes down. “Thank you,” he says instead.

He never knew it could be like this. He’d never known anything besides hair pulling and teeth gnashing and _fuck me faster_ and this isn’t so different, but he feels so new, baptized in the curves and bumps of her body.

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the end was a post-sex scene between Nathan and Max. I think it's appropriate for the rating since there's no explicit content. Has Nathan ever walked in on his parents doing the dirty tango? No, but somehow this is infinitely worse. Are there some incest vibes here? Yes, but for who? We'll see.
> 
> To my follower Sparkle+94, know that a certain prompt you requested is in the works, so I hope you stick around for more!
> 
> PLEASE COMMENT BELOW WITH A REQUEST, REVIEW, OR ANYTHING! I CAN NOT STRESS HOW MUCH THEY MEAN TO ME, OR REALLY ANY FANFIC WRITER, REALLY. THANKS, AS ALWAYS!


	15. All the Wicked Yonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rachel grabs the gun and shoots.
> 
> Click.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a prompt requested from one of my old time commentators Sparkle+94:
> 
> What if Max was a crazy photo lady and Nathan and Rachel had to escape from her?

She should be repulsed. Disgusted. Throw a drink in his face and scream something like, “You sick bastard!” or “You fucking freak!” or even “Eat shit and die!” But when Nathan finally cracks and tells her about the dark room, Jefferson, the missing girls,  _ all of it,  _ she pulls him close and whispers “ _ I’m not going anywhere.”  _

And somehow, it’s infinitely worse.

* * *

 

“Oh, that’s just gross,” Max whines from behind the lens  of her polaroid. Pink and pointy, her tongue sticks out in disgust and she is forced to put her camera down. 

“Now, now, Maxine, bleeding and secreting bodily fluids is just one of the many inconveniences of being human.”

“If being human means ‘secreting bodily fluids,’ then I think I’d much rather be a robot, Mark.”

Jefferson chuckles and takes a crisp, white handkerchief from his pocket and dabs the blood trickling from Rachel’s nose. A lifetime ago she would have clawed his eyes out if he so much as offered her a tissue, but now she barely grimaces at the older man’s coddling.

“Yuck,” Max comments. Almost imperceptible, Rachel’s grimace stretches into a slanted frown. Instantly, Mark squeezes Rachel’s cheeks and shoves her onto her stomach so that she’s prostrate, face-down. “Super gross,” Max giggles at Rachel, face-down in her own pool of blood.

“Max, you don’t want to say anything  _ negative  _ to your model.” Jefferson tuts and tilts Rachel’s head so that the corner of her mouth is exposed to the cold air. Letting her breathe, but just barely.

“Well, it’s not like I said it to her face!” Max giggles at her own joke and even Jefferson laughs, a masculine rumble. If Rachel looks annoyed, it would be impossible for Nathan to tell.

“Can she even breathe like that?” Before Nathan can flip her over, Jefferson slaps his hand away.

Red as a poker, his hand sizzles and Nathan can’t find the words in his mouth. The older man had spat at Nathan, screamed at Nathan ( _ YOU USELESS PIECE OF-!)  _ even had his way with him, but he never has known the man to resort to such banal methods. 

Jefferson had never hit him.  _ Until today. _

Jefferson shoots him a tight smile. “It took a long time to set up that pose, Nathan. We wouldn’t want to ruin Max’s shot, would we?”

Max sends Nathan a pleading smile and clicks.

* * *

 

_ Would we? _

“You could leave them.”

_ Shut up. _

“You could tell someone.”

_ I can’t. _

“You could call the police,” Rachel rasps. Her voice is as grating as sandpaper, but resonates in him like a Spartan commander, do or die.

Nathan pours her a cup of water. His hand jerks and the water sloshes out of the cup and splats on to the pristine white tiles.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he mumbles, mopping up the spill with his red jacket.  _ As if Mark doesn’t fucking hate me already.  _

Oddly enough, his jacket is as heavy as a brick and there’s something in his pocket-  _ clang.  _ A gun, black as oil and twice as dense, clatters to the floor.  _ Shit. _

“You carry a gun,” Rachael states. 

A blank stare.

“You carry a gun,” she accuses. “You could’ve killed them a  _ long time ago,  _ blow their brains out, and yet you do nothing.”  Nathan tries to pockets the gun, but he drops it and it falls to the floor. 

Right in front of Rachel.

“Look, Rachel, I don’t know what you think I can do. I’m a fucking mess, okay? A big, fucking mess, I can’t even pour a fucking glass of fucking water, so I don’t know what the fuck you want me to do, or-”

Rachel grabs the gun and shoots him.

_ Click. _

It’s empty.

Not even a papercut on him and yet he can feel the shot between his ribs, pain flaring in his pierced liver. 

_ “She’s disappointed,”  _ Nathan realizes at the defeated look in her eyes. 

“I wish you were dead,” she spits at him. She tosses him the gun. And just lays there.

“That makes the two of us.”

* * *

 

“They aren’t too sweet, are they?” Max slides him a stack of snickerdoodles. He inhales the cinnamon spice, represses a gag as he imagines the buttery air expanding inside him like a balloon.

“They’re fucking snickerdoodles. They’re supposed to be sweet.” He tries not to think about the mountain of sugar she must have poured in, small-scale pyramids built on heaps of those translucent white cubes.

“Aren’t you going to try one?” She holds out the cookie towards him. Two, ten, twenty seconds pass and Nathan can’t grab the goddamn snickerdoodle.  _ Can’t.  _ He wishes it were a knife. Or a gun. 

“ _ I wish you were fucking dead.” So disappointed, the I-pity-you eyes. _

Nathan grabs the cookie as if the moment hasn’t elapsed. He shoves it so far down his throat, he can barely breathe. If it doesn’t touch his tongue, he can maybe stomach it for fifteen minutes. Long enough to kiss goodbye Max and hunch over the nearest toilet.

“They’re great, Max,” he chokes out. She smiles, but not enough to expose her two front teeth. 

“I’m glad you like them.” She bites into a snickerdoodle, and Nathan can see the jagged impression in the dough from her cute overbite.

“So for our next photo shoot, I was thinking…” Nathan lurches.  _ It’s the cookie.  _ He listens, contributing the occasional “ _ oh yeah?”  _ and “ _ sounds good.” _

_ It’s the cookie. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Sparkle+94, I hope you enjoyed this one. I have to admit, this was really hard to write. I love Nathan and Max so much, especially when Max and Nathan share a healthy, stable relationship. SO seeing Max as a full-blown psychopath was hard to write. But I hope you liked it. As for the short length, there is a part 2 coming out. Not directly after this, but soon enough, hopefully. 
> 
> On to the analysis: so this Max is a psychopath. Rather than being repulsed by the idea of the dark room, she's interested. Thrilled, really. And Nathan, being that his closes people are monsters (sean and Mark) goes along with Max, his beacon of light who can do no wrong. I mean if everybody in your life told you that "xxx is totally ok?" and you were used to being manipulated, you'd probably cling onto them and be reassured.
> 
> Evil Max is fascinating to write. She almost takes pleasure in the Darkroom, not the sick, perverted pleasure of a dirty old man (Mark and Sean, too probably) but the giddiness of a teenage girl psychopath, a villain hardly explored in literature. Even though it hurts to write this, Evil Max is refreshing. She's new and has so many paths to go down, she makes a more fucked up intriguing villain than Jefferson and Sean combined. She has a tactical edge (she managed to find Rachel, after all) and she's a good people watcher, and Mark's protege. Oh, and her relationship with Mark? Well, she did have a bit of a crush on him...who knows? 
> 
> Rachel's in the darkroom, too. But she's not dead. Yet(?) We'll see. She's not too thrilled though and blames Nathan for this hell hole.
> 
> And Nathan? Let's just say that it was NOT the cookie.
> 
> IF YOU WANT TO MAKE A PROMPT REQUEST PLEASE LEAVE ONE IN THE COMMENTS. TELL ME WHAT YOU HATED, TELL ME WHAT YOU LIKED. I LOVE COMMENTS, AND I TREASURE YOUR ADVICE.


	16. Is forever for you?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The fuck is your problem, Presco-” She splutters, backpack landing on the floor with a hard slap. “No way. No fucking chance.” Her single lock of brown hair dangles peacefully on her forehead like a fish hook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hair identifying soulmate au where you have a lock of your soulmate's hair, but you don't know who it is. Okay, let's get this show on the road!

“I’m going to die alone,” Nathan tugs at the brunette curl that flops over his forehead and bangs his forehead against the mirror. _Ow, fuck._

“Quit being such a drama queen, Nate.” Victoria rolls his eyes from her vanity, dabbing her salmon lip gloss, puckering for her reflection. “I’m sure he- _or she-_ is out there somewhere.”

“This coming from a girl who threatened to sue the school after being assigned the understudy in a school play.” Nathan narrowly dodges the oak wood hair brush that bounces off the mirror.

“Missed me!” Nathan stuck his tongue out. By some cosmic fucking balance in the universe (that’s probably governed by drunk, Swedish mathematicians rolling seven-sided dice) the hairbrush bounces off the mirror, clatters to the floor, and falls handle first on top of his painted pinky toe.

“Ow fuck, Victoria that’s going to leave a bruise!” Nathan nurses his broken toenail, flecks of indigo nail polish like blood on the floor.

“Well at least it’ll match your nail polish,” she snickers between lip smacks.

“Maybe it’ll match my cast, too.” He wriggles his foot in her face and she bats the offending appendage away with her hands.

He flops onto her bed, drowning in the cashmere bed sheets. Her bed is large enough to sleep a family of four, her bedroom a ballroom. His eyes land on the Hamilton, Wicked, and other broadway posters that are neatly tacked to her ceiling. Next to them is a line of report cards, the oldest a yellowing slip so translucent that he sees the rectangular strips of tape underneath. Nothing but a long line of A’s that make his eyes water before he even reaches sixth grade.

“She’s like, _obsessed,_ with being perfect,” Courtney had shuddered when she first saw the trail of report cards. “I think I’d have a better chance spotting leopard print in Victoria’s closet than a single B.”

Courtney wasn’t invited back. It wasn’t just the comment that had set Victoria over the edge. From the two dismissed calls from “Bitch from Hell” (her mother, of course) to the way she sloshed her parent’s wine in her cup (stolen, of course), Courtney was an outsider, flamingo in a flock of parakeets.

How could a girl like that, a girl who clamored over her mother’s missed calls or wrong colored car, _ever_ be a part of this? It was always the A’s that threw them off, they never bothered to look at that immaculate spot of white, _Parent sign here,_ a patch of white snow against dirt. How would a girl like that ever know what it felt like to hoard every scrap of her parent’s attention- report cards, birthday cards, even attendance notes- when she deleted her mother’s voicemails with a swipe?

“Are you still thinking about them, Nate?” Victoria flops down on the bed next to him, her head resting on his arm.

“Yes,” he lies. “What if I don’t have one, Vic?” Not a lie. He turns so her pink, glossy lips are centimeters away. “What if I never have one?”

Victoria scoffs. “That’s complete crap, Nathan. Everyone has a soulmate.” She lightly thumps his chest. “Besides, why wouldn’t you have one, Nathan?”

 _Car accident. School shooting._ “I dunno,” he replies. _Run over by a train. Shot by a bullet that hit a car and then hit them._

“Then stop worrying, Nathan.” Victoria flicks his nose and he bats her finger away. _Murdered by a serial killer._

* * *

 

Evidently, the universe is not, in fact, governed by drunk Swedish mathematicians rolling seven-sided dice. The shade is so imperceptible from his own chocolate quiff, that he can scarcely believe it himself. But under the careful scrutiny of his, Victoria’s and even Kristin’s ( _This better not take more than ten minutes Nathan, some of us have physics homework)_ combined eyesight he can scarcely believe the russet curl that drapes over his forehead like a cat’s lazy tail.

He yanks on the strand of hair, poses from his left and right side (his left side was better), twirls it with his fingers. Strawberry blonde. He went to a fucking art school in the most hipster town this side of Oregon. There were strawberry blonde soccer moms grocery shopping at Walmart, strawberry blonde sorority girls selling cookies at bake sales for phi beta kappa gamma whatever, strawberry blonde baristas at Starbucks that lamented over their english degrees and unpaid student loans while pouring your venti mocha grande sewage.

Nathan half considers shaving his hair off but then sighs, and puts the buzz clippers down. Apparently, the universe is governed by a drunk Swedish mathematician’s _cat_ rolling dice. He tugs the lock of hair and seriously eyes the buzz clippers. 

* * *

 

For once in the sick, stupid, 16-year long practical joke that is her life, one thing has finally worked out. Sort of.

Alright, so it wasn’t Rachel (despite carefully scrolling through her mile long Instagram feed and scrutinizing those light brown locks from every picture) but it’s pretty close. Although she hasn’t seen or spoken to Max in over three years, she has no doubt Max will be thrilled to know that it’s her.

Alright, so maybe not _thrilled._ But maybe this is meant to be. Maybe the universe was trying to pull them closer after years of separation, the red string of fate typing them together; _soulmates_ , that beautiful and exotic word on her tongue.

“Can’t be a pirate without your crew.” She digs through her old journals: cringey drawings of Zac Efron (High School Musical 2 era only), Nirvana t-shirt that no longer fit (never worn), her dad’s old camera (no comment), until she finds that gnarled, yellow slip of paper: _Call me._ Her (ex) best friend, blue eyes obscured by a gaudy pirate hat, dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail.

Faded by time, she has to squint to make out the blurry seven’s and two’s she punches into her cellphone. _“Please remember me,”_ she fiddles with the phone number in her fingers, turning it front and back.

 _“Hello?”_ An oddly quiet voice on the other end caustically approaches. Chloe grins so much her cheeks pinch.

“Hi, Max? It’s me, Chloe. I know it’s been a _super_ long time since we’ve talked to each other (was that resentment leaking into her voice?), but I really think we should catch up…”

* * *

 

Monday morning at 8:15 A.M. Introduction to photography and studio art. Her personal hell, his very own heaven.

Chloe squinted, eyes adjusting to the lightless classroom, blinds pulled down so low that not even a single sunbeam penetrated the window. Grainy like an old school computer, a black and white Arbus is zoomed in so much that she can count the pixels. The photograph's subject’s a dejected [ girl ](https://www.google.com/search?q=arbus&rlz=1CAACAV_enUS813&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjszNXbgMHdAhXwguAKHRIWCbUQ_AUIECgD&biw=1229&bih=600#imgrc=EHHEgyc210UlgM:) in a button down coat, carrying a vintage book bag stares back at her, sharing in the quiet dejection of _school_ and _assignments_ and most importantly, _Mondays._

“ _Me too kid,”_ Chloe thought staring at her little, solemn face. “ _Mondays suck ass.”_ And then to punctuate her statement, she yawned. Loudly.

“I’m sorry Ms. Price, but can you please elaborate on _why_ you find Arbus’s photographs so boring,” Jefferson shot her that smug disdainful look he had whenever he handed her back her tests back; alcohol, drip coffee, and prep school all rolled into one.

“I could,” she retorted, “but it’s would be so boring that I would probably forget it all before I started talking.”

“Is that so?” He pursed his lips and then smiled. It wasn’t the _haha, good one_ smile of an amused teacher who playfully scoffed at his adolescent student’s antics, it was the _haha now shut the fuck up_ smile of someone who was doing everything in their power not to strangle you.

“Yeah, it is.” There was that smile again, followed by the irritated twitch of his fingers. _“Duly noted,”_ she observed. “I’m sorry what were you talking about? I suddenly have amnesia.”

He tightly smiled. “Would a trip to the Principal’s Office jog your memory?” He drummed his nails against the side of the scratched projector.

“What about a trip to the county jail? Would that jog your memory, dumbass?”

Chloe whipped her head a 180, spotting none other than the snarled face of Nathan Prescott glaring back at her. She snarled back.

She swiped a quick glance at his crotch and leaned forward as if she were slipping him some advice, totally negated by her loud stage whisper. “Do you need a sock, Prescott? Your photography boner is showing.”

“Do you spend a lot of time staring at my dick, Price?”

“How can I look at something that doesn’t exist-”

“Alright! Enough, both of you!” Jefferson runs a hand through his hair and exhales. His hands twitch and Chloe wonders which one of them he’d most likely strangle. Him? Her? Both?

“The two of you can go sit in the corner _together,_ while the rest of us will continue with Arbus.” Before they can open their mouths in protest, Jefferson sharply exhales. “Be. Silent.”

She scowls as she slides into the desk next to him. _“Dick,”_ she mouths. _“Whatthefuckever,”_ he mouths back.

Nathan stares at her stupid pink lips. They don’t look alluring or even the least bit attractive. They’re cracked, he’s pretty sure they’re bleeding at the edges, and they’re pink, so fucking pink.

Her mouth is scrunched up, completely furious, he wonders if her lips could get any more rumpled. _“How angry would she be if I just…”_  He imagines her lips, cracked and bleeding, all the same, the warmth on his face of something real, tangible like a burn seared into his skin.

 _“Brrrring!”_ At the sound of the dismissal bell, students shuffle from class and the squeaks of sneakers and swishes of tennis shoes fill the hallway. Nathan bites his lips and slides out off his seat.

“See you around, loser,” he scowls.

“Same to you too, dick face,” Chloe scowls back. 

 

He spots Victoria’s cap of blonde hair in the hallway like a beacon of light. “Vic, you won’t believe this stupid chick I met in Jefferson’s today, she doesn’t even like _Arbus…_ ” 

* * *

 

Chloe fiddles with her lighter, flicking the flame on and off like a light switch. She’s happy, _she should be happy,_ she tries to forget about the last few days, _last_ _few years_ , that asshole from yesterday’s photography class. Instead, she focuses on the tiny lick of flames, disappearing in and out of view like a magician’s coin. The bus screeches to a halt and despite covering her ears, she knows she’ll be hearing that for days. _Whatever, it’s worth it though._ It’s worth it because she had managed to get a hold on Max, her (former, but who was paying attention?) best friend, the reunion of the century. The bus doors open and its visibly unhappy tourists file out: fat, short, miserable.

Chloe tries to spot that chestnut colored ponytail, almost black at the roots. But to her dismay, none of the passengers, save a mousy girl with freckles, remotely resemble Max. She’s about to send a message on her phone (hey Maxipad, did u bail?) when she feels a tap on her shoulder.

“Ummm, can I help you?” She stares blankly head at the mousy girl with freckles. _Please don’t be Max, Please don’t be Max, Please don’t be Max…_

“Hi, Chloe? Has it been that long? It’s me, Max!” The girl who claims to be Max pulls her in for a handshake turned hug made awkward by their obvious height difference. Chloe pulls Max in so that she could rest her chin on Max’s short bob. Which are two shades too light. _Please be a dream, Please be a dream, Please be a dream…_

* * *

 

The last two hours are, in fact, not a dream. She is made painfully aware of this fact when Max fumblingly trades phone numbers (again) and waves goodbye from inside a dimly lit coach bus en route to Seattle.  

 _“Fuck it all,”_ she thinks as she makes a sharp turn on the highway. A sedan, gray as a pencil tip, honks at her. “EAT SHIT, ASSHOLE!” she screams as she clumsily merges.

When she gets to the convenience store, she nearly gives an old lady a heart attack asking where the hair care section was. Blue, pink, green, she grabs practically every bottle of hair dye off the shelf that she can fit into her cart. Electric yellow, hot pink, whatever.

The cashier shrinks at the sight of her, doesn’t even bother asking _“How was your day, ma’am?”_ Instead, he meekly swipes her purchases under the scanner as fast as possible without making eye contact.

“Your total is $202.14” he practically whispers. She snarls and he flinches and pretends to study his nails. Chloe fingers the crisp twenty in her pocket. Twenty dollars meant gas money for a month, brand name cereal for breakfast, socks without holes in the toes.

“How much for just the blue?” she sighs. 

* * *

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” According to the instructions, she’s supposed to unscrew the tube of hair dye (check), apply generously to all parts of her hair (check), leave it in for an hour (check), and then rinse (check).

Voila! When she unwraps the towel from her hair, it’s blue. Mostly. Stubbornly brown, that little strand mocks her from its lofty vicinity of her forehead.

So Chloe dyes her hair again. And again. And even one more time after that. But to her disappointment, the little curl stays brown, furry antennae of a moth among the azure gleam of butterfly wings.

“Seriously?” She twirls the strand of hair between her forefingers and grabs a scissor. One snip and she would be free of this blemish, like popping a pimple or pulling a tooth. Glossy as a polished diamond, the twin blades of the scissor are blinding even in the bathroom’s dingy lighting. _One snip. Just one snip._

Except...that’s not how it works and she knows it. Chances are it would grow back before sundown, and then she would be back at square fucking one. _This is such bullshit._

 _Well if you can’t find a solution, just improvise._ Chloe adjusts the beanie so that it sits crooked on her forehead, just so to cover up that single brown curl.

She tries a smile in the mirror. _God, I look like shit._ She rips the beanie off her head, throwing it into some abandoned corner. 

* * *

 

The first thing that Nathan notices when he strolls in late to photography Wednesday morning is that the canister of drip coffee he swiped from Mrs. Grant’s desk isn’t all that bad. Unless you _haven’t_ spent the last 16 years with your tongue in a cup of nuclear waste, in which case it’s horrible.

The second thing he notices is the eyes. Brown’s, blue’s, the occasional green stares back at him in expressions that range from the mild surprise ( _wow, I can’t believe Gilmore Girls is getting a reboot),_ to thoughtful befuddlement ( _can you believe there are more trees on Earth than stars?),_ to complete confusion ( _holy crap my parents had sex at least once)._

“The fuck are you assholes staring at?” A nerd, gay-rahm or something, opens his mouth and closes it until his lips are a thin line as if the words will escape his mouth if he doesn’t lock it shut. But it’s effective for the most part, and even gay-rahm manages to peel his eyes off and concentrate on his notes.

“Good morning, Nathan. Take a seat, please.” That gets Nathan’s attention. Normally Jefferson couldn’t be bothered to remember his existence, much less his first name. The older man tosses Nathan his customary two-second glance, but he abruptly stops, zeroing in on his face for all of two seconds before resuming with his lecture.

Victoria looks at him as if he was dressed in purple polka dots and a fanny pack. Nathan slides into the seat next to her: “Okay, what the hell is going on Vic?”

Jefferson shoots him a dirty glare and Nathan sheepishly ducks his head. He rips out a piece of notebook paper (college-lined) and she tosses him a lilac gel pen.

 _“Nate, your hair,”_ she writes tentatively as if the words will leap off the page.

 _“I didn’t have time to shower, ok?”_ he scowls and self-consciously flattening the strands that stick out like a spider plant.

Victoria slaps his hand away. She musses his hair for good measure, and then promptly sweeps it back into a manageable quiff. Still, she bites her lip and writes _“That’s not what I’m talking about.”_

 _“Get to the fucking point.”_ Even his penmanship looks angry, t’s crossed like hatchet marks, letters aggressively pushing into each other.

 _“Your hair is blue, Nate.”_ Nathan blanches and immediately rips a single strand off his head, holding it up to the light like a holy relic. To his relief, it’s the same chocolate brown of his childhood.

“What the hell, Vic?” he mouths. She sighs and pulls her own hazle lock, distinguished from the rest of her immaculate pixie only by color.

He tugs his own curl, that _stupid fucking pain-in-the-ass curl_ that refused to be combed or gelled or listen to any number of hair products or straighteners.

 _It’s blue._ Of fucking course it is. Of course, halfway across the fucking planet for all he knew, his soulmate had just discovered Hot Topic and succumbed to the emo hipster punk crowd and dye their hair fucking _blue._

Once again, the universe has proven that it is governed by truly sadistic/drunk/maniac/feline fucks that have too much time on their hands. Somewhere inside of him, he imagines his heart plummeting through the tunnel of his ribcage. _Well, now would be a good time to jump out the window._

“Sorry I’m late, I was too busy slaying a dragon.” Nathan barely registers Chloe’s voice as she waltzes in her usual forty-five minutes late (if at all), too busy pondering the price of the nearest bus ticket to _the fucking sun._ It’s only until he hears Vic’s sharp gasp does he turn around and see Chloe in all her sapphire glory.

Nathan’s face scrunches up so far, he vaguely resembles his aunt Ingrid’s asshole bulldogs that nearly gnawed off his toes and pissed on his pillow.

“The fuck is your problem, Presco-” She splutters, backpack landing on the floor with a hard _slap_. “No way. No fucking chance.” Her single lock of brown hair dangles peacefully on her forehead like a fish hook.

Slinging her backpack over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes, she slams the door shut so hard on her way out, Nathan can feel his teeth rattle. The students stare at him like anxious children in the aftermath of a divorce, scuttling out of his way, averting his eyes.

“Whateverthefuck are you staring at?” he snaps. Him, apparently. “Y’know what?” he demanded, kicking his desk so that slid and left track marks on the floor. “I’m outta here.” 

* * *

 

His lungs are on fire, he can feel them swell and expand and spasm for precious oxygen.

“Wait,” he wheezes. _Fucking cancer sticks._ Tar, sticky as tree sap, clutches to his lungs, black tendrils rooted into his capillaries. It squeezes the air from his lungs, that sweet suffocation, falling out of orbit, perpetually spinning in zero gravity. Tears in his eyes, dust in his mouth, heaviness in his heart.

“Just wait goddammit!” She’s ten million miles away. Every time he paces towards her she slips further and further from him until her electric blue blurs out of distance like a traffic light.

_Don’t leave me behind._

His foot knocks against an obnoxious yellow sign, CAUTION: SLIPPERY WHEN WET, and true to the placard warning, his heels slip out from under him, and he is airborne.

Zero gravity. Falling out of orbit, a space ship flung off course from falling asteroids. The impact washes into his body like waves, surface sting slapping against his face. Receding, the pain never leaves his body but seeps into his body like a stain.

“Shit…” Nathan bangs his head against the floor. Teachers are shuffling out of classrooms, a few curious students poke their heads out doorways. He slams his head against the floor, once, twice for good measure.

Disappointment. After the pain recedes, he will be feel nothing, not the salt streaking down his sharp cheeks, nor the elephant in his skull from holding in his tears like a dam.

_Please don’t leave me behind._

Wide and worrisome, Ms. Grant’s gripe fills the hallway: “That Prescott boy up to no good again?” It’s oddly satisfying, like watching cake batter pour into a pan.

“Wow. Calm down, Prescott. We’re like soulmates, it’s not like your Daddy confiscated  your favorite Bentley.”

“You’re back?” Her eyes are narrowed into slits that burn into his head. He hopes she never takes her eyes off him.

“No,” she says, yanking him up so hard his arm nearly pops out of his socket, “I never went away, dumbass.” 

* * *

 

“I fucking hate my dad.” Her truck is _hot as balls_ and smells like the inside of a Taco Bell, and he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

She laughed, “Ha,” short and stale like an inside joke gone sour. “Join the club.” Her puff of breath is warm even through his layer of skinny jeans. She rests her head in his lap, fingers tracing treasure maps on his knees.

“This one time my Dad bought a pony.”

Nathan snorts. “I wasn’t born yester-”

“No really,” she cuts him off. “When I was eight, my best friend and I drove all the way to Portland for this state fair because it had this sick pirate ride.”

“Two eight-year olds got into a car and decided to drive to Portland?”

“No, you asswipe, my Dad drove us,” she slaps his knee. “Anyways, Max was so excited to get on the ride but when after finally waiting in line for three hours she couldn’t get on because she was too short to ride.”

“How short?” Nathan asks.

“Midget short. She barely cleared my nipples standing up.”

Nathan chortled. “Sounds like you missed out then.”

“No,” she says slightly sitting up, and Nathan’s terrified he’s crossed a line. “Sorry, that was a shitty thing to say,” he apologizes.

She looks at him as if he can’t spell OK, and lays back down. “Nah. It wouldn’t have worked out anyways…” her fingers crawled towards his thighs. “I mean I thought it could have been her y’know. Her being my ex-best friend and all that crap. But I could barely recognize who she was. I couldn’t see the girl I egged houses and stole beer and stole candy with.” Suddenly, she laughed, loud enough for Nathan to jump out of his seat. “God, we wouldn’t have lasted an hour, probably.”

Whenever Chloe was bitter, she spoke in a casual, dismissive tone. Nathan could tell that she cared, her eyes were lined with so many creases: William, Max, Joyce, her closest friends and family all flakes.

Casually so that it wouldn’t seem intentional, he brushed her nape with his pinky. “What about the horse?” he asked, partly out of curiosity, partly because he couldn’t stand the sad, stale air.

Nathan sucked in breath as Chloe’s fingers squeezed his thigh. She smirked. “She way crying so hard that my Dad offered to take us to the animal exhibit. Which totally smelled like shit, by the way.” Nathan nodded, mutely. How was he still so turned out even after she mentioned excrement?

“There was a raffle and my Dad kept telling me that I should enter, but I kept telling him he was crazy. He told me that ‘miracles only happen when you’re not looking for them.’ I told him he was full of it.” Her fingers were dangerously close to his crotch.

“But he was always right about these things. And an hour later, me, Max, and my Dad were leaving with a pony on the backseat of our jeep.”

Nathan cleared his throat. “Speaking of back seats…” he trailed off.

“Oh, fuck off Nathan.”

 _Nathan._ He wants to tell her all the ways he wants to hear his name on her lips: when she’s pissed, when she’s insulting his hair, when she’s plastered to him so tightly that he can’t tell where she ends or where he begins.

But they have forever, they’re _soulmates,_ a lifetime together, so all he says is “Whatethefuckever.” And so marks the beginning of their eternity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nathan x Chloe soulmate au! I'm still not their biggest fan, but since so many of you guys really like these two, I decided why not? Gotta give the people what they want. This is probably my favorite Nathan x chloe prompt to date. They're not bitter adults yet, and just two horny awkward teens. And what's more fun than that? I just thought this prompt was so fitting because Chloe's blue hair could spice things up. 
> 
> I'm also a huge fan of the Nathan/Victoria friendship. I don't ship them, but it's the one thing that I see is constant between all the alt. universes, whether he's with Max or Chloe or by himself. I just really like this sibling relationship, especially considering Nathan must miss Kristen. They understand each other and come from the same background, so it's just nice to see them in their element.
> 
> Nathan and Chloe are also fun to write. They're unpredictable yet are at the age where they still fall into teen stereotypes of being angsty and annoyed and thinking the world is against them. I mean I can't see these two in any coffee shop dates or walking the beach or cute coupley shit so it really makes me think. I have to wrack my brain for something good, but when I find it it's wholly original and something I'm proud to call my own. I didn't always enjoy writing these prompts, but I'm starting to really be happy with my fanfic. I feel like I've progressed as a writer especially from the mish-mash of ch 1. 
> 
> I HOPE I CONTINUE TO WRITE THIS STORY AND GROW EVEN MORE. SO PLEASE REVIEW WITH WHAT YOU LIKED OR DISLIKED, I READ AND REPLY TO ALL OF THEM. LEAVE A REQUEST BELOW, AND PLEASE COMMENT!


	17. Fleur-de-Lis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr letsmcfreakingloseit: 
> 
> Hanahaki Disease is an illness borne of one-sided love, causing flowers to form and grow in the lungs of the unrequited, the petals coughed up with increasing frequency. If the love is not returned, the flowers filling the patient’s chest will eventually prove fatal.

_ “Love is a give or take relationship.” _

_ “Love is a give or take relationship.” _

_ “Love is a give or take relation-” _

He coughs. Blood splatters into his palm, his shirt, his white carpet -  _ “Goddamnit, laundry day was just yesterday” -  _ his dorm room, the scene of a crime. He grabs the tissue box on his nightstand, (in close proximity to the bed for various reasons) and dabs the red that’s already seeping into his white button-down.

“Are you fucking kidding me…” the more he dabs, the more it spreads. Down it drips past his navel. He’s a human ice cream cone, strawberry syrup oozing down his torso. 

He abandons the tissue entirely, halfheartedly chucking it at the trash can near the foot of his bed. It misses and bounces off one of his photographs instead, a woman’s back, crisscrossed in black bindings. The residual blood on the tissue causes it to stick to the woman’s backbone. Satin soft, the lines in the tissue bunch up into petals while the blood coagulates into a red circle the size of a quarter. In the end, a magnificent, if slightly wilted, lily protrudes from the woman’s backbone like a misplaced corsage.

Nathan flops onto the bed. 

“Ow, fuck!” His shoulder smacks against a Diane Arbus photo book (signed), hardcover still poking into the flesh beneath his armpit. 

_ “Love is a give or take relationship.” _

_ “Love is a give or take relationship.” _

_ “Love is a give or take-” _

More blood this time. It dribbles out of his mouth at first and then splatters onto his shirt again as he hacks and coughs. His chest burns and he is reminded of sand castles and the damp, Florida air. 

“No, no, not again…” This familiar agony, how long has it been since he felt this delicious pain? 

“No I can’t do this again-” Rising in his throat like a scream, he hacks once, twice until the blood dislodges from his throat.

Pink and small as a newborn’s scrunched lips, the flowers float before falling just out of reach of the blood stain. 

“Well, fuck.”

* * *

 

His pockets smell of peonies. In the locker room, after swim practice, a boy scrunches his nose. 

“The fuck is that girly smell?” He sniffs. “Has someone been spraying perfume or some shit?” Nathan cowers from his corner, shrugging on his red varsity jacket before anyone can notice the faint lines crisscrossing his forearms. 

He’s the first one in the pool, last one to leave, and only one in the showers. He has the routine down like clockwork- ten minutes, to be exact.

Ten: shrug on jacket.

Nine: Zip up before anyone notices your ribs.

Eight: Towel off wet hair before you get pneumonia.

Seven: Rip off trunks without making eye contact with anybody in the room. Ever.

Six: Put on a dry pair of pants. 

Five: Curse and swear to burn every pants factory to the ground when you put your right leg in the left hole and vice-versa. 

Four: Repeat step five. Again.

Three: See step Four.

Two: Grab remaining clothes and run to the showers-  _ “Check it out, Prescott’s gotta yank it guys!” -  _ and say a prayer for the left sock you’ve dropped because you’re sure as hell not going back for it now.

One: Run to showers and-  _ Splat!  _

Nathan bites his tongue hard enough to leave a scar, but it’s no good. He wheezes, blood rains from his mouth onto one of the wooden benches. Stifling his coughs with his hand, his throat convulses and blood seeps through his fingers. 

Throat burning, he removes his hand. Blood falls out of his mouth and slaps on the faded blue tiles. A couple of boys look up from their conversation (peanut butter or chocolate?) and gasp in alarm.

“Someone get the coach!”

“No, call a doctor!”

“No, call 911!”

“You ok, bro?” One of them, Hayden, creeps towards him in what’s supposed to be reassuring. Although the panic on his face suggests a helpless asteroid that’s been involuntarily sucked in by Nathan’s gravity. He raises his hand as if he’s about to rub circles on Nathan’s back. But then Nathan wheezes so hard that his back muscles spam and the guy leaps twenty feet back.

“Don’t,” he rasps before he’s interrupted by another cough. 

“Shhh, shut up, he’s trying to say something!” The other boys crowd Nathan in a circle. They are alarmed, but oddly enough not entirely scared. Something in their eyes gleams with morbid fascination. Nathan pushes his hands out as if he were channeling the almighty, his worshippers instinctively stepping back. 

Scratching, burning, itching, his chest heaves and then he coughs one final time. Pale pink petals flutter to the dingy tiles, this time ten or twenty.

Nothing. For a stunned silence, the air in the room escapes into a vacuum and the boys stare at Nathan.  

“Don’t call anyone,” he finishes.

Nathan looks at the boys who are looking at him. Shocked, stunned confused, like a kid that’s stayed up all night and saw their Dad slip the new bike- the red one with the tassels that look like shooting stars in the wind - they’ve been begging for all winter under the Christmas tree. 

He’s a dog that walks on two legs, a fish that’s sprouted wings and flies.  _ Why are they looking at me like that?  _ But then he remembers that it’s  _ him  _ and that he has a better chance of falling off the side of the earth than falling in love with someone, anyone. 

Who could love Nathan Prescott?

He shot in black and white because he found red, blue, and yellow too dull. Sucked the hue from life like a leech. 

Who would love Nathan Prescott? 

Hesitantly, the boys shuffle out of the locker room and fall back into their conversations (Chocolate. Definitely chocolate.) Tremors wrack his cold, wet body which he stifles through his bloody fingers. Covered in crimson and dyed an off-yellow from chlorine, his fingers resemble soggy french fries dipped in ketchup.

Someone hands him a handkerchief embroidered with protons and neutrons. “You can keep that if you want.”

Nathan clutches the handkerchief long after a new batch of boys jostle and shove their way into the locker room, long after Samuel wheels in a dingy white bucket and threadbare mop. He doesn’t give it back.

* * *

 

“Who is she?” seems to be everyone’s question when he struts down the wood-paneled hallway at 8:15 A.M., slightly stoned and completely pissed. His phone vibrates so loudly in the front pocket of his chinos, he nearly drops his tea. He checks it:

* * *

 

From: ICKY VICKY 

To: PROCRASTINATHAN

CC: <HAYYYDEN>, <LOGANPAULSUX>, <TAYLORSWIFT>, etc.

“BLACKWELL’S RESIDENT KING MISSING HIS QUEEN?” by JULIA WATSON

* * *

Underneath the cringey caption (Why did people refer to him as Blackwell’s resident king? That was like being the general manager of a Wendy’s or the sixth best regional spelling champion) is a picture of him in a soaked white t-shirt ( _ last one, shit _ ) and swim trunks puking up blood and flower petals. _ Well, shit. _

“Stella said that it might be Taylor. They totally hooked up last year, Victoria was completely pissed at her, she didn’t speak to her for days.” Nathan pockets his phone. 

When he looks up, everyone looks away, suddenly talking about English homework or last night’s game. The air is thick with guilt and they practically snap their necks to avoid eye contact. Nathan pulls out his phone again. 

“Bet it’s probably Victoria. They are  _ way  _ too close to be just friends.” Nathan smirks and texts Victoria.

* * *

 

From: PROCRASTINATHAN

To: ICKY VICKY

Evry1 says it’s u

* * *

 

No less than ten seconds after he sits “send,” his phone vibrates.

* * *

 

From: ICKY VICKY

To: PROCRASTINATHAN

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. EW.

* * *

 

For the second time that week he is saved by the bell. Students dart into classrooms while Nathan takes his sweet time sipping his Chamomile and tossing the styrofoam cup in the trash. He misses.

“Arbus says Sally Mann’s black and white portraits of children are meant to be unsettling; disturbing, some might even say. Given that her subjects are primarily children, many critics say that she purposely chose them to display some stark nudity which would be much more controversial had her subjects been ten years older. Ironically enough, her photos gained even more controversy as her fellow co-workers accused her of softcore child pornography…” 

Victoria quietly slides a chair out and Nathan saunters into his seat without even a passing glance from Jefferson. He can’t help but love the older man for this, no name-calling, no sassy remarks at an ungodly hour in the morning. Victoria slides him a lilac gel pen, he rips her out a sheet of paper, college-lined.

“ _ So, who is she?” _ Victoria’s scrawl is oddly messy, a glaring contrast to her impeccable cashmere and perfectly uniform nails. 

“ _ IDK what you’re talking about? _ ” Nathan’s is a sloping cursive, dots that hang just out of reach of his i’s and j’s. 

“ _ Don’t be a dick.”  _  Nathan grins a bit when she pouts her lips and snaps her bubble gum right next to his ear.

He draws a dick.

She elbows him in the ribs and they ache when Nathan snickers. He lays his head down, closes his eyes. It was impossible to think when he was stoned, “ _ might as well sleep it off.” _

“Now can anyone name one of Mann’s more iconic photo books which came out recently?”

Predictably, Victoria’s hand shoots up. 

“ _ Hold Still,”  _ he thinks. Located on the third shelf of his bookcase, next to a dog-eared copy of Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch” and a tube of Diazepam, almost empty. 

“Hold Still,” a distinctively feminine voice replies. He lifts his head. Kneading her fingers under her desk where she thinks no one will see, Max blushes from underneath a curtain of mousey brown hair. 

“Very good Max! Someone has been reading ahead.” She smiles that open-mouthed smile, the one that makes her two front teeth stick out from underneath her soft, pink lips.

_ Fuck. _

He feels the blood rise in his throat like a balloon. 

“ _ Hold Still _ , Mr. Jefferson” Victoria crudely imitates, “can you believe that hipster chick?”

Either she doesn’t notice Victoria’s jab or she doesn’t care because she scratches her pen into a ragged notebook ( _ a diary? _ ), rests her chin into the crook of her small hands. Her face is angled in a way that he can see the smattering of freckles on her pink dusted cheeks, powdered sugar sprinkled on a saccharine sweet pastry. 

Would they taste just as sweet?

He wonders if those freckles span the rest of her body, her neck, her shoulders, her…

_ Shit, shit, shit. _

A thousand pennies in his mouth. He grabs his camera, jacket, notebook, and practically runs out of the classroom.

“In the end, we can see that Mann’s artistic license ultimately paid off, reiterating my philosophy, which you all must know by now.” This time, Mark’s eyes wander to the red rivulet, trailing down his chin.

“Always take the shot.” 

* * *

 

"Occupied!” a more than annoyed voice yells behind the flimsy stall door. He tears past all the urinals until he reaches the handicapped stall.  _ Thank fuck, the toilet doesn’t smell like shit,”  _ he registers as he lifts the toilet seat up and vomits into the toilet bowl. 

Red and pink, blood and petals, the pristine toilet bowl his snow-white canvass. He hacks, spitting out more flowers. A bonsai garden in miniature (in a toilet), the petals peacefully float on top of the river of blood (and toilet water).

He gags, flowers scratching his windpipe. A hand slaps the small of his back, and he finally spits out the last of the peonies.

“Holy shit, Nathan, warn me next time!” Victoria shrieks. She rubs circles on the small of his back. Reaching for the varsity jacket which he tossed haphazardly on the floor, she drapes it over his shoulders. Another heave and the last of the pink petals are out of his system.

He collapses against the stall door. She reaches inside of his jacket pocket and retrieves his handkerchief, electrons and protons embroidered on the edges. 

Chlorine and bleach, that sharp smell of pool water curls around his skull like an overgrown house cat. He gasps for air. Victoria picks his notebook off the floor and stuffs it into the bag he would’ve left hanging on his chair.

At last, when he’s no longer dry heaving, Victoria sighs.

“Does it really have to be her, Nate?”

He thinks about her wildflower scent, fresh and clean, the way it lingered on her long after she left.

“Whatthefuckever, Vic.” Victoria scrunches her face, Pompidou’s likeness, and sits next to him. She pulls him in, leaning his head against her slim shoulders.

“ _ Love is a give or take relationship,”  _ he silently chants. 

_ Love is a give or take relationship. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, it's been forever since I updated, and I just wanted to say it feels so damn good to be back. I had to take a little break from writing because of personal reasons, but I've missed creating content so much. Anyways, enough about moi.
> 
> This is a hanahaki disease prompt. It relates to Chapter 11 (so go check that out) and is part of the hanahaki universe. Ok time to dissect. Nathan would probably deny his love for Max because if's what he does best: denial. I thought the hanahaki universe worked so perfectly for Nathan because he isn't the type of person who would outright confess his feelings, he'd rather suffer in silence. Nathan's upbringing isn't exactly loving, either. His dad is a canonical prick, and in my imagination, so is his mom. I don't think Nathan would know what to do with himself if he was ever in love, at least in this universe, SO FAR.
> 
> Also in this house, we support a platonic relationship between Nathan and Victoria. I know LIS implied that they may have a sexual relationship, and I was kinda disappointed in them, but hey! These were the same people how had Max say shit like "ReADy For tHe MoSH PitT SHakaH bRA!" I just love the idea of Nathan having someone his own age that he could be himself around. While I do think Nathan has male friends, I don't think he necessarily makes friends with men easily. I feel like he's sort of unsure how to tackle his masculinity because he has so many toxic male role models in his life (Mark, Sean). So I feel like he could only truly be comfortable around Victoria, because he'd be the masculine one in the dynamic by default. Also, Fuck yeah, platonic friendships!
> 
> And of course, my true love Caulscott. I tried to choose a flower native to Seattle or Arcadia Bay, but I couldn't settle on one. If I had to choose, it would be a small pink wild flower. Tough and tiny. Don't get me wrong, I like Pricescott but it's not my OTP.
> 
> PS: for my reviewer :) please know I'm writing your request.
> 
> SPEAKING OF REQUESTS, please leave a REQUEST or COMMENT. I REALLY FEEL CONNECTED THROUGH COMMENTS, NEGATIVE OR POSITIVE. I'M IN THE MOOD TO WRITE PLEASE THROW ME A REQUEST!


	18. Mark Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a universe far, far away there exist two lonely people who are destined for each other in every single way. They just need to find each other first. But if the words on their skin are anything to go by, destiny might be far from perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tattoo AU: Every person is born with a soulmate, marked by a tattoo of the first words they'll ever say to each other.
> 
> To my reviewer :), thank you for being oh so very patient for your tattoo au. Do not fret, there is more of your universe coming your way.

 

If you happen to get Nathan Prescott in your bed and follow the hollow valley under his throat you will find a neat trail of words dotting his clavicle: “What took you so long?” in evenly spaced yet chirpy handwriting. 

You then ask him about it.

“Have you found them yet?” you ask. “Do they know who you are?”

He frowns, offering a half-hearted shrug. “What do you care, anyway?” he retorts.

“Do you want me to take my pants off, or what?”

It then occurs to you that:

  1. You came here to get laid. 
  2. You sort of _do_ care, now.



But instead, you say, “fuck yeah.” And you pull off each other’s clothes like you’re both on fire and the only way to douse the scorching heat is by pressing up against each other as tightly as possible. 

Nathan’s a good fuck. He doesn’t say shit like  _ “snookums,”  _ or “ _ sweet cheeks,”  _ or even worse,  _ “Babe.”  _ He doesn’t have to refer to you as his  _ “slut,”  _ or his _ “whore,”  _ to get off because he has some deep, repressed issues after walking in on his parents doing it that one time he was supposed to be at school, and most importantly, he never pulls the  _ “just the tip”  _ crap. 

The sex is tactful, discreet, and timed just so that you fall off the edge just a minute apart, if not together. After that, you pull your clothes on and go because that’s what you do after a good fuck. 

Except you don’t. Not exactly, anyway. Maybe it’s because you’re curious, or maybe it’s because Rachel’s gone, or maybe you’re just acting up because your new step-dad is a total douche who hates your fucking guts. 

Instead, you leave something behind. Purple blotch at the end of the sprawled sentence like a period, the hickey is just visible enough that you can make up the faint outline even after he slips his shirt on. 

He notices, of course. Sitting on the edge of his bed, cigarette dangling from between his index and ring finger, he traces the love bite, again and again, wondering if he saved your number.

But by then, you’re long gone.

 

* * *

For as long as he remembers, Nathan’s been fucking up. 

At his third birthday, his mother reprimands him: “Goddammit, Nathan, that cake took TWO MONTHS to order, Nathan, and you devoured it in two seconds like some pig. This is the last birthday we’re ever having.”

When he’s at the playground, his father scolds him: “Nathan, why can’t you play with the other boys? Stop playing house, you little faggot.”

In the mirror, 12:02 A.M., tracing the hollow of his collarbone: “What took you so long?”

_ What took you so long?  _ He imagines the inevitable dread that will wash over his soulmate’s face when they realize they’re stuck with him, how he’ll fuck that up, too. He agonizes over the right response, on the toilet, in between class, fucking some girl he met at one of his vortex parties.

_ “I’m sorry.”  _ Seventeen years on this godforsaken planet, seventeen years of sleepless nights, dreaming up hypothetical first dates: coffee shop, cinema, long walk on the beach, and the best he could come up with is _ “I’m sorry.”  _ It seemed as if the only thing he could ever offer was an apology. 

* * *

 

For as long as she remembers, Max’s been worrying. 

At her third birthday, her mother reassures her: “The candles are completely safe, Maxine, I promise your hair won’t catch on fire.”

When she’s at the playground, her father encourages her: “Go play with the other kids, Max. I’m sure they’d love to play house with you!”

In the mirror 12:02 A.M., tracing the hollow of her collarbone: “I am a stupid, stupid man.”

_ I am a stupid, stupid man.  _ She imagines the inevitable dread that will wash over her soulmate’s face when they realize they’re stuck with her, how she’ll have a full-blown panic attack before they even get to names. She agonizes over the right response, in the shower, during study hall, leaning on Chloe’s shoulder during a late night to the Two Whales.

_ “It’s my fault.”  _ Sixteen years on this godforsaken planet, sixteen years of dazed mornings, dreaming up hypothetical first dates: park picnic, the theatre, long hike through the woods, and the best she could come up with is _ “It’s my fault.”  _ It seemed as if the only thing she could ever offer was an excuse. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this chapter - especially you, my intended :) - as I intend on expanding this universe. Perhaps in a series of three parts, oh believe me, I have plans for this universe. I'm just a sucker for these types of things, things like fate and love and destiny and maybe I'm just a hopeless, hapless romantic. But if you're reading these, then I guess that makes the two of us, doesn't it?
> 
> Well, time for some analysis. To begin, Nathan has sex. Whom exactly does he hook up with? Well, well, well, I hope it was obvious because I'm not gonna say it (don't want to make it too obvious). I know we all want to believe that the ideal teen male protagonist is this sexpert, but I think Nathan's the type to go for a throw. Part self-destruction, part teenage debauchery, and complete utter loneliness.
> 
> As for Max? I can't think of a more anxious person. I feel as if a lot of people sweep her problems under the rug, but I think there are no unflawed characters in LIS. It's why I like it so much. We see that Max is pretty timid initially, and sort of eager to please. I think that constant drive to please would result in some internalized anxiety. The voice in her head never stops and never falters. That's probably made for some long sleepless nights with her own conscious to keep her company.
> 
> Side note: I hope the slurs I use don't offend or hurt anybody, but I didn't want to sugarcoat Sean Prescott. The Prescott's are this all-American family- at least that's their image. I imagine that would result in this desperate facade which hides homophobia, gentrification, and a healthy dose of systematic racism. Just a reminder that Sean LITERALLY wanted to tear down sacred native American burial grounds to build Pan Estates.
> 
> PS: I'm UPDATING on OCTOBER 31st AKA Halloween in the USA! So check me out if you have some time to kill or some corpses to hide.
> 
> And to my reviewer, Hiya, know that you're in for a sweet treat!
> 
> AS ALWAYS DROP A COMMENT OR A REQUEST BELOW! DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK!


	19. Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He runs the razor down his quivering forearms. He traces the baby blue of his translucent veins. The razor opens him up like a book and he can feel himself, Nathan, Nathan, Nathan, pushing up against his skin, ready to burst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was dedicated to my follower Hiya. Dear Hiya, I'm sorry I didn't post on Halloween as I intended. I was swamped with a lot of work, and then I just hit a mental block. I hope you're still here to read this.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING! SELF HARM AHEAD!

_Have a holly jolly Christmas_

_It’s the best time of the year_

_I don’t know if there’ll be snow_

_But have a cup of cheer…_

Beer tastes like shit. Of course, he knew that beer was _supposed_ to taste like shit, isn’t that what all the fathers say when they clap their sons, reminiscing over their own first beers? _Go on, try another sip, I promise it won’t taste to bad this time._ And pinching their fourteen-year-old mouths, they downed their beers, ash in their mouths, clinking each other’s cans.

It wasn’t the novelty that perplexed him so much, it was the promises. _“Well, of course, it tastes bad, it’s supposed to be bitter.”_ As if expecting the bitter taste made it more palpable, a spoonful of honey to swallow the poison. There was a time where he, too, would stick his hand in flames for his father, dousing the burn in paternal coaxing. _“Well of course it burns, Nathan, it’s supposed to.”_ Of course. Of course. Of course.

The tables have turned these days. Nathan finds himself coaxing words out of his father- “Good morning” at breakfast, “Is it going to rain?” watching the weather forecast, “I’m so sorry,” in the play pretend of his mind. He was a frazzled mother in a T.V. sitcom, prodding her glowering teenage son lest he blows up the whole house.

And when his father finally talked to him?

_“Nathan, your mother and I are going to visit your sister for Christmas, so we’ve given the gardener and most of the help the holidays off. The house will be empty, so please don’t make a mess or throw any of your godforsaken parties in the manor. You have a spare kay Nathan, don’t misuse it. We’ll be back the week after New Years.”_

His father’s voice echoed off the Bluetooth speakers connected to his phone. He gulped down the slosh of beer in his can and popped open another one. _Your mother and I-_ he reached for another beer- _the house will be empty- “tschhh,”_ the delicious fizz of opening up a new can- _don’t make a mess-_ swallowing all its contents in one greedy gulp. 

* * *

 

“Craaaaaap,” Warren lamented as he fumbled for his car keys. “ _Swear_ I had them just now.” He patted down his pants pockets, turned out his forest green duffle jacket and even emptied out his suitcase. Rifling through cotton briefs and an unpaired striped sock, his car looked like- _well,_ if he were to be honest, his car looked like the exact same bomb site it always was.

“Oh god, what if I miss my flight?” Warren frantically tosses aside t-shirts and creased cargo pants. He skimmed the bottom of his suitcase: unused stick of deodorant, more cotton underwear, “Eureka!” he grasped onto a distinctively metallic object, holding it up to the frigid, winter air.

Thin as the bare birch trees in the surrounding parking lot, his tablet stylus glistened in the cold sunshine. “...crap.” 

* * *

 

_Have a holly, jolly Christmas_

_And when you walk down the street_

_Say hello to your friends you know_

_And everyone you meet_

Butterfly, butterfly. It’s blue and it can fly so high. Is he speaking or have the thoughts in his head always been so LOUD?

“Butterfly, blue butterfly…” Nathan reaches out for the blue butterfly that flaps its wings on his face, settling on the bridge of his nose. The beat of his wings is deceptively soft on his nasal cavity, like powdered sugar. They don’t feel like wings at all, but feathers. But he can hear the small thrum of power in his ear, the mute vibrations of its pulsating wiry legs, crouched for liftoff.

_Hello._

“Hello, butterfly,” Nathan slurs. “It’s been a hell of a long time.”

_It has, hasn’t it?_

“I feel like I’m a hundred years too old for this shit. I’m so fucking old I make dinosaurs look like newborn puppies.” In his ranting, Nathan knocks down a can, half-empty. Or half full. It stains the carpet just the same.

_Ha! I’m much older than you._

“What are you talkin’ about?” Nathan hiccuped. “Don’t you die in like, a week?”

_Not anytime soon, I hope._

“Must be nice…” Nathan hiccuped again, “having a short life. Not having to worry about all that crap like taxes or insurance or iPhones. Must be really nice.” Nathan reached over for another can of beer. The can wasn’t so cool this time, and so the beer tasted like microwaved Pine-sol.

“Isn’t life too long? Aren’t we just dragging it out at this point? I mean the other day, I was watching some dumb old movie about a cruise ship that sank. There was a love story and all because it’s a movie and all, but it’s terrible.

For one, the guy’s super rich, but like, can still afford a dentist or something because his teeth are perfectly straight and white. The girl is rich as fuck, and she’s also straight and white, except she’s not happy at all because she has to marry this asshat but she never takes the money and leaves, instead she signs up for this dumbass cruise with her and her shitty family.

And the rich guy and the poor girl, I mean, the rich girl and the poor guy end up together because everything in this movie is straight and white but then the boat crashes and then everyone dies except the depressed rich girl. And a bunch of boring assholes, but nobody cares about them anyways.

The point is that the entire fuckin’ film could be filmed in ten minutes and we wouldn’t have to slog through it for three goddamn hours. They could have just skipped straight to when the boat sank and everyone died and it wouldn’t have changed everything because, well, the boat sank and everyone died. And this was two fucking hours. Two. Fucking. Hours.

It’s all just long. They keep dragging and dragging and dragging it out when they should just skip to the end. Everything’s just too long these days, huh? It’s all just too damn long.”

_I wouldn’t know. I’m just a butterfly, remember?_

* * *

 

“God, what’s taking so long?” Warren’s hands are as cold as the layer of ice that encapsulates the door handles to the boy’s dormitories. Samuel was supposed to be here with the keys, _ten damn minutes ago._ Warren pounds against the cold, glass doors.

“Samuel? Are you in there?” He’s met with silence, save for the agonizing howl of the biting wind. His ears sting. “Samuel? Hello?”

He bangs on the door hard enough to split open one of his knuckles. “Ow, ow!” Nursing his bloody knuckle, Warren had taken to slapping the front door with his palm.

“Samuel brought bandages.” At the sound of the janitor’s voice, Waren jumped. Behind him, Samuel stood, the unnerving presence of a woodland creature hidden in a thicket. He extended the giant ribbon of bandages towards Warren.

“Oh!” Warren reached for the bandages. “Thanks for the bandages, Samuel. You’re a real life-saver,” Warren gushed. _“Although I wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place if it weren’t for you.”_ But Warren kept that to himself, wrapping his slit knuckle instead. He noticed the sinuous veins that seemed to sprout out of Samuel’s blue janitor’s outfit, crisscrossing his bare arms like a stream.

“Aren’t you cold without a jacket, Samuel?” Warren asked.

“Samuel and the squirrels will be fine, friend. Nature always takes care of its own,” Samuel reassured, despite sounding not reassuring at all.

“Well…” Warren rambled, “scientists predict that the earth’s current carbon dioxide emission has caused global warming to take effect and raise the temperature in North America by more than five degrees, particularly in the Pacific Northwest…” Upon noticing the older man’s blank stare Warren shut up.  “Here’s your bandages, by the way. Looks like it was just a scrape,” Warren tried thrusting the bandages into Samuel’s hands.

Samuel shook his head. “You should keep it, friend Warren. You may never know when you will need to use it.”

At that, Warren stuffed the bandages into his pocket while Samuel unlocked the double doors.

_“Samuel always sounds so out of it, but other times he sounds like he knows everything.”_

“Okay, Samuel, if you say so.” In response, Samuel shot him what Warren supposed _what Samuel supposed_ what was supposed to be a convincing smile, which left Warren feeling very _unconvinced._

“Thanks again, Samuel,” Warren slipped inside the double doors.

“Good luck, friend,” Samuel whispered as the doors closed shut. 

* * *

 

Have a holly, jolly Christmas

And in case you didn't hear

Oh by golly have a holly jolly Christmas

This year

Prolonged and just the right touch of painful, the razor slicing ribbons of his skin makes him gasp and choke for air. Air pumps into his lung like a balloon, the excess oxygen making his head spin.

“God,” he gasps, “God”. _It’s so good._

He runs the razor down his quivering forearms. He traces the baby blue of his translucent veins. The razor opens him up like a book and he can feel himself, _Nathan, Nathan, Nathan,_ pushing up against his skin, ready to burst.

His mind wanders to the time he had sneaked up on a butterfly, lazily slurping from a big, yellow daffodil, and trapped it in a glass jar. At first, the butterfly thumped against the glass, zipping from side to side, _buzz, buzz, buzzzzzzz._ Finally stopping, it lay down and waved its wings as if to say goodbye, before laying down in its glass coffin.

Some part of him has been clawing free from his thin skin, some neonatal, crying component that he had locked away. There it is again- _Nathan, Nathan, Nathan._

Tears stream down his cheeks, _wahhhhhhh,_ and all he can feel is the razor digging into his pale skin.

 _It’s too much._ Suddenly the blood spurts from his arms. A geyser of blood squirts everywhere, splashing his shirt, the ceiling, his desk.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck!” Blood spurts out of a thin red stream inside his arms. He had been so enraptured with the delicious pain, he had accidentally nicked an artery instead.

He presses down on the red slit, more blood bubbles up. “Shit!”, it hits him in the face.

“Clang,” goes the crimson razor as it clatters on to his floor. “Oh no, no, Fuck, noooo…” Nathan wails. He reaches for the box of tissue, conveniently located on his nightstand, ripping out the plush tissues and dabbing it against his wound. No good. The blood leaks out of him, and he feels like nothing so much as a _fat_ , overripened piece of fruit, juices leaking from a single bite. He’s drowning, there’s blood everywhere, it’s clawing its way out, _Nathan, Nathan, NATHAN-_

* * *

 

“Thank god I made it in time,” Warren sighs. “I would’ve totally missed my flight if I hadn’t found you on time”, he dangles his keys. In the end, he had left them on top of his desk, next to his lego spaceship. Anticlimactic, but then again, most of Warren’s life was.

Until he spotted the butterfly. _Lycaenidae Lepidoptera,_ in its natural habitat, was rarer than a Leonid meteor storm, visible only every 33 years. Outside of its natural habitat? Warren had struck National Geographic gold. He drummed his fingers against the Lego spaceship, where the butterfly just so happened to be perched.

One one hand, he was going to miss his flight. On the other...his hand was already reaching for the smartphone in his back pocket. Quietly, so as to not make a sound, Warren carefully retrieved his cell phone, punched in the passcode (0915, Max’s birthday) and positioned his camera.

_3…2....1._

Before Warren could tap the screen, the butterfly flapped its scaly blue wings. “Hey wait!” Warren called, shoving the android (he refused to conform to the ios interface after an app he pitched was swiftly rejected for “lack of an audience”. Which is ludicrous, considering tens _tons_ of people would have found telescope trivia plenty amusing).

“Wait!” Warren called before swiftly reprimanding himself. _“Of course butterflies don’t speak English.”_ He chased the butterfly from his room, down a hall, where it stopped in front of a dorm. Warren swallowed.

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” read the whiteboard. If the butterfly could read, it didn’t heed the slate. Slipping under the inch of door frame, it’s powdery blue wings disappeared from Warren’s view and into the dorm belonging to none other than Nathan Prescott.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so sorry for letting you guys down, especially Hiya. I know I promised to post on Halloween but I was really exhausted and I just hit a mental block.
> 
> Hope you guys don't kill me for the cliffhanger. THIS IS PART 1!!! by the way! I'm in the middle of many requests, so I'm trying to break them all down into bite-sized pieces so I don't leave anyone hanging. That way I can focus on everyone, without getting bored of a specific fic. I hope this doesn't irritate anybody, as I have a lot of requests in the work, but I just want to get something out. I've found if I don't update often, I slack off.
> 
> Anyways, enough about me. I hope you guys read the trigger warning for self-harm. I'd like to apologize for those who were unaware or uncomfortable, but I thought this was an important facet of Nathan's character to explore. I noticed that Nathan ALWAYS wears full sleeves. Even in LIS 1, he's never wearing a t-shirt. 
> 
> We know that Nathan is pretty self-destructive. He throws parties, gets into fights, and resigns himself to death at the hand of Mr. Jefferson. I don't think it would too far off to assume that he self-harms or has an eating disorder. 
> 
> Nathan doesn't have any control over his life. Even in the first LIS game, Nathan is destined to shoot Chloe in the bathroom. If it's Chloe's destiny to die in the bathroom, then it's also Nathan's to shoot her. Even the universe manipulates him. I think Nathan's body is the only thing he has control over. But even that's an illusion. He's just fatally harmed himself, and now he may or may not die.
> 
> As for Warren, I think he'd be the best character to encounter Nathan. He's really handy in tough situations, I feel like people don't give him enough credit. A lot of people write him off as "creepy nice guy neckbeard" but honestly, he's a pretty decent guy. Sure he's cringy, but he's also sixteen, and he means well for Max. Even if Max ended up with Chloe, I think he'd support it. 
> 
> BTW, I think some of you have the impression that I'm anti-Pricefield. To clarify, that's not true at all. I think they're a wonderful representation of lesbian relationships and it's great if you guys ship it. I've just always been more interested/identified in morally grey/skewed, flawed characters. I think they too, have a fascinating story to tell.
> 
> AS ALWAYS, PLEASE COMMENT OR LEAVE A REQUEST! I'M ALWAYS INTERESTED IN WHAT YOU GUYS HAVE TO SAY, AND I ALWAYS REPLY!


	20. Just Hold On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan stretches for the doorknob. It’s out of reach. His fingertips can feel the lock, all he has to do is turn one measly little latch counter-clockwise...he feels so tired. The universe is shrinking and getting so small. A pinprick of light, insignificant as a period lingers in his eye like a mote of dust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back! So it turns out sorting through my personal shit took A LOT longer than I thought it would, but I'm done! I had so much paperwork to fill out and I was so stressed that my writing quality just went down the toilet. Utter crap.
> 
> For my other followers who were requesting stories, please know that I'm working on them, more diligently than ever.
> 
> Trigger Warning! Blood and gore!

Well, it’s decided, then. It’s a shame too, he knew websites that would have paid top dollar for a snapshot of the big blue butterfly. But if it wasn’t meant to be then, well- he eyes the foreboding white slate. 

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” No spaces. All caps.

Warren shrugged. He had a flight to catch, anyway. He tells himself that as he slowly turns around and makes for the exit. 

“FUCK!” It’s Nathan,  _ probably in the middle of one of his moods _ , Warren reasons. He hears a crash.  _ Definitely in one of his moods. _

“NO!” Warren glances at the enticing EXIT sign, neon red letters beckoning him over.

“FUCK, NO, GOD-” Warren finds himself ramming against Nathan’s door which is bolted shut. 

“Nathan, are you in there?!”  _ Duh, obviously,  _ he rolls his eyes. “I’m coming in!” Warren shouts. 

* * *

 

His white carpet is ruined. Oh, and he’s going to die, but that’s secondary. He was afraid at first when the razor sliced his artery clean open. But now he sees that it’s fate, that  _ I should have died with Rachel,  _ and that it was a miracle that a fuck-up like him had it made it this long. 

The gash stings where his blood spurts, but the rivulets of blood have become hypnotic. They sensuously trail down his fingertips before splatting against the snow white carpet. He closes his eyes.  _ I’m going to die. _

“Nathan!” Someone’s pounding on the door. Whatever, he’s way too tired to deal with this. 

“Nathan, are you ok?”  _ No, I’m not, I’ve never been ok,  _ and he was tired of telling himself otherwise. It’s all he said these days, the only word that dribbled out of his mouth.  _ Nathan, you’re such a freak. _ Ok.  _ Nathan, this is all your fault.  _ Ok.  _ Nathan, I wish you’d go to hell.  _ Ok.

“I’m coming in! I’m gonna break down the door if you don’t open it!”  _ Good fucking luck.  _ After that hipster bitch and her emo girlfriend had broken in, Nathan had made sure to reinforce the door with not one, but two extra locks. No one could touch him anymore. 

“Ok, I can’t break down the door, you’re going to have to open it!”  _ Was that Gayrahm?  _  Nathan tries to remember the kid, but he can barely muster the strength to keep his eyelids open. Schrodinger’s t-shirt and perpetually floppy hair, he vaguely recalled Warren from the brief visits he saw of him (unsuccessfully) flirting with that hipster bitch. The sad scene never failed to rouse a laugh, she was way out of his league, and clearly wasn’t interested. What he wouldn’t give for those innocent, brown eyes to glance in his direction.

“Nathan please open the door! Please!” Memories flash in his mind, arbitrary things- the first time he tied his shoe, splitting an ice cream cone with Victoria, losing his virginity to some senior girl in the bathroom during a Vortex party. Cigarettes burning his lips and lungs. Curls of smoke in the air disappearing like wishes.

“Nathan, OPEN THE DOOR!” His arms are sticky with blood. 

Nothing about him is clean anymore. Nathan has always been dirty, before he used to stand outside his parent’s bedroom, listening in to their lovemaking, before Mark’s hands wandered down his body, did he even try and fight him? No, he hadn’t, and if he had, he never tried hard enough. Nathan has never been clean.

“Don’t want to be dirty,” Nathan slurs. “No more dirt." He looks at his forearms, more flesh and blood than exposed skin. How will they clean him up for the funeral? Prop him up like a paper doll, pump him full of chemicals so he can stand up straight. 

_ Nah, they’d probably go for a closed casket. Less trouble.  _ He imagines the 2 by 6 coffin, the doors bolted shut. He can’t breathe. Wood, splinters digging into his fingertips when he tries to pry the casket open. He can’t breathe, he’s six feet under where no one will hear him scream.

_ “If you make one more mistake…” Mark’s hands sliding over his ruined body. “Put one little toe out of line…” cupping his throat, “you’ll end up with Rachel.” _

“Don’t bury me,” Nathan’s eyes pop open. “DON’T LEAVE ME WITH RACHEL!” Copper tang fills the air. “Ohfuckohfuckohfuck”. 

“Let me in!” Warren howls. “GODDAMMIT NATHAN, OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!” 

Guided by Warren’s voice, Nathan fumbles out of his chair and collapses onto the white carpet. He tries to get up, but his body is a thousand pounds.

He’s a whale, stranded on shore. Managing to prop himself up on his forearms, he manages a slow crawl to the door. He zeroes in on the gold doorknob, everything else fades out of sight. The universe has shrunk to the size of that gold nugget, and Nathan crawls and crawls until he hits the wooden door.

Nathan stretches for the doorknob. It’s out of reach. His fingertips can feel the lock, all he has to do is turn one measly little latch counter-clockwise...he feels so tired. The universe is shrinking and getting so small. A pinprick of light, insignificant as a period lingers in his eye like a mote of dust. 

* * *

 

Why is he so desperate?  _ Since when have I ever cared for Nathan Prescott?  _ His knuckles have split open on the hardwood door. A chip of paint flecks of the door.  _ The guy’s a complete asshole, anyways. He almost beat the shit out of me in a parking lot.  _ Warren can notice a sizable dent where the wood starts to cave in. 

“Please Nathan…” Warren begs. “Just...just let someone in you stubborn ass.”

Silence.

Warren collapses to his knees. “Please…”

_ Click.  _

* * *

 

“Ow, fuck!” He’s in entirely too much pain to be dead. He feels the slap of a calloused palm hit his cheek again. “Get your hands off me, asshole!”

He’s met with two innocent brown eyes, almost puppylike in their sweet concern.  _ Graham. _

“Holy crap,” Warren whispers. His lips are close enough that Nathan can feel Warren’s warm breath against his own. “You’re still alive”.

Nathan lifts his head. “Fuuuuuck. Must have been one hell of a hangover.” He lays his head back down. 

Warren gapes at him. 

“What is it, Graham? Got something to say?”

“Well,  _ excuse me,  _ for being concerned. It’s not every day where I come across someone trying to kill themself!” Warren gesticulates with large arm waves.

It’s then that Nathan looks down his body. His arms are bandaged so clumsily you’d think someone bandaged them with their feet. Memories rush into his head, the hodgepodge of the last 20 minutes. The razor. The crying. And the blood.

Nathan blanches. “Pshhh,” he jeered. “I wouldn’t have died.”

“Yes, you would have! Did you know what you looked like when I walked in here? It was a bloodbath! Like cannonball-  _ cannibal _ holocaust but a thousand times worse!” Warren has a habit of stumbling over his words when he’s nervous. 

_ “Huh. That’s kind of cute.”  _ Nathan blanches again.  _ “You’ve just lost a ton of blood”  _ he reminds himself.  _ “You’re thinking weird things.” _

“Oh my gosh!” Warren cries. “You’re so pale! You must be cold because of all the blood loss!” He huddles Nathan into his arms. “Don’t worry the police will be here, soon?”

“You called the police? Are you high? The police report to my dad who’s going to find out and-”

“I called the suicide hotline. It’s all discreet because you’re not a minor anymore. Whatever happened in here remains between you and me,” Warren reassures. He pulls Nathan closer to his torso.

“Oh,” Nathan lamely responds. He can feel Warren’s torso crushed against his wiry frame. Their bodies are so different, stocky muscle padded with a layer of hearty fat where he’s just bones and sinew. 

“Oh no,” Nathan whispers, horrified. There must be something to be said about the endurance of inconvenient erections even during the most terrible of circumstances. 

“What’s wrong?” Warren asks, in that too sweet voice of his. “Is it your arms?” he asks, brown bangs skimming the top of Nathan’s forehead.

“It’s nothing,” Nathan croaks. Despite losing at least a quart and a half of blood, Nathan can feel what’s left of the blood in his body rush south. 

“Stay with me, ok?” Nathan likes how Warren’s voice is so confident, so sure. If Warren asked him to throw himself at his feet, Nathan might’ve started groveling. He might have done some other things to, if Warren just asked.

“Hey!” Warren snaps his fingers in Nathan’s face. “Don’t close your eyes!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Nathan yawns. “Tell me a story,” Nathan pleads. “I’m so bored I could die,” he smirks.

“Not funny, asshole,” Warren pouts. “But ok, if it’ll keep you awake…”

Police sirens bray in the distance. Flashes of red and blue stream in through the windows.

“Have you ever read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? It’s a classic.”

“Mmm,” Nathan replies. 

He could fall asleep to Warren’s words, the highs and lows of his masculine timbre rocking him to sleep.  _ Stay awake for me, ok?  _ But he doesn’t, and he holds on. If not for him, then maybe for Warren. He can do this. Heavy like thunder, the paramedic’s footsteps resonate through the almost empty boy’s dormitories.  _ I can stay awake. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my reviewer Hiya, and other readers, I managed to complete a request. It took ten fucking years, so I thank you guys for your neverending patience, but I hope you were intrigued.
> 
> As you guys may have noticed, this chapter is hella gay. Well, not really, but kinda. I have been getting some grahamscott requests these days, and I just want you guys to know that I am open to writing most ships, except maybe pricefield. Not because they're not a kickass, awesome, time traveling badass ship, but because there is already a lot of content written by much better authors. Also, I don't know how I'd include Nathan into a Pricefield chapter when this story really is meant to be a character study on Nathan.
> 
> I was always trying to introduce Nathan's bisexuality in some way. While it's completely possible that he could be straight, I've always wanted to write a bisexual male character and tackle topics such as preserving or coping with one's masculinity, and gay erasure. 
> 
> I love this fandom, but I feel like we, and as an extension, all of AO3, fetishize gay relationships and sort of misrepresent them? Sometimes I feel like it's either/or. A character can't be bisexual or questioning, or just whatever, they HAVE to be gay or straight. 
> 
> That's why I wanted to portray Nathan as a bisexual character. I feel bisexuality can sometimes be forgotten. In the game, Nathan has a lot of anger and homophobia which I think might be some sort of internalized issues. While I think he's still interested in women, I don't think that interest takes away from his interest in men. Nathan can have it both ways, as long as he's happy.
> 
> I also wanted to reference the sexual assault in this chapter. There are references to Mark Jefferson raping or at least molesting Nathan. Again, I do think that Jefferson might have had a fixation of Nathan which could have manifested into a sexual assault/abusive relationship. 
> 
> Please note that the self-destructive/blaming thought process in Nathan's head is not indicative of a healthy, happy person. He is unable to cope with the sexual assault, so he is blaming himself, as many victims so. In reality, the victim is NEVER at fault for sexual assault.
> 
> On that note, that pretty much wraps things up. PLEASE COMMENT ON WHETHER YOU'D LIKE TO SEE SIMILAR CONTENT MATTER! 
> 
> LEAVE A REVIEW/ REQUEST! AND YAY WE MADE IT TO 20 CHAPTERS!!!


	21. Give him my Thanks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Warren cried. “I’ve got the black death, and none of you are allowed to come near me!”
> 
> “What?” his father said. He laughed through his tears. “No, no!” He kissed Warren’s cheek.
> 
> “Honey, you’re not going to die,” his mother chimed in. “You’ve got a-”
> 
> “You’ve got a soulmate!” Rosalind squealed. “Oh, it’s so romantic, Warren! You’ve met your soulmate!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thisistotallymyrealname: Grahamscott soulmate au
> 
> The soulmate develops a bond through emotions and thoughts until eventually, they share minds.
> 
> Not going to lie, this was really, really hard to write. This was a long update in the works.
> 
> But for all you grahamscott fans out there, I hope I did you guys justice!

Thanksgiving at the Graham household meant two things: burnt food and too many relatives. His cousins could have been aliens for all he cared. They invaded his rooms, took his parents hostage with their “adorable” whims and drained the fridge of it’s precious reserves. Of course, his parents seldom listened to his warnings, choosing instead to tousle his hair.

“But Dad, Rosalind keeps hogging the video games! She’s played Wii Sports for the last  _ three hours,  _ and she doesn’t even play two-player mode!” Warren pouted on the kitchen counter. It would just be another year before Warren wouldn't be allowed to sit on the counter ever again. He was a full head taller than the second tallest boy in his grade, gangly arms and legs that knocked over unaccompanied objects, bottles and beakers shattering into a thousand jagged shards.

“Well that’s not very nice,” his Dad frowned. “Have you told her that you wanted a turn?” Warren made a face. “Also, please stop kicking the cabinets bud, you’re hurting their feelings.” It wasn’t entirely his fault. Brimming with a certain kind of chaotic, manic energy known only to eight-year-olds, Warren often found his appendages moving entirely outside his control.

“She doesn’t listen to me,” Warren whined. “It’s because she’s nine. She’s an  _ entire year  _ older than me.” 

“Well, why don’t you help me out in the kitchen instead?” Mr. Graham handed his son a wooden spoon of pumpkin pie filling. “You can be my taste tester.”

Warren licked the pumpkin pie filling, the spicy residue tingling his tongue. “My tongue tickles,” he giggled. 

“That’s the cinnamon, bud”. His Dad’s warm laughter filled the house along with the mouthwatering aroma of garlic and thyme. Since last week, the heating had been broken, but Warren found that the cold air carried the smell of mashed potatoes and turkey stuffing into every corner of the house. 

Strangely enough, he felt some sort of heat emanate from his chest. Seeping over his torso like a stain, the heat traveled to his face, leaving his cheeks and the tip of his nose crimson. At first, the heat was soothingly warm like diving into a pillow-and-blanket fort with Mom and Dad. But then the heat started to hurt. He was showered with the scalding heat of a star. 

“Dad it’s hot!” he sobbed. “Daddy, I’m on FIRE!” Warren screeched. His father picked him off the counter and ran the sink. Despite its icy temperature, the water didn’t do anything to dissipate the heat. If he were a wax figurine, his face would have melted by now. 

“It’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot!” Warren howled, his scream muffled by the falling water. Distorted and shrill with panic, he registers his father’s voice, screaming for help. His mother pressed an ice pack to his skin, his father fumbled the number for 9-1-1.

“What’s wrong with him?” Rosalind asked, abandoning his video games in lieu of the panic. “Is he going to die?” she whimpered.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” her mother, Warren’s Aunt Marie, chided. She stroked her daughter's bony shoulder. “It’s probably just an allergic reaction.”

Guilt, for better or worse, is known, on occasion, bring about the  _ best  _ and  _ worst  _ in people, and Rosalind was no exception. She held Warren’s hand on the way to the hospital. “If you get better,” she sobbed, “I promise I’ll let you play all the video games for the rest of my life”. 

Such a sentiment would have made Warren gloat around his remorseful cousin for an entire month. If only he had been awake to hear it. 

* * *

 

“Stop blocking the t.v., faggot.” This is why Nathan hated Thanksgiving. While his mother’s side of the family had remained childless, save for a much older female cousin who was already pursuing law at Harvard, his paternal uncles and aunts had too many children to spare.

Giant ruddy faced boys who looked like they already paid mortgages and frequented late-night sports bars, his cousins were another species entirely. At ten, Nathan was painfully aware of their insurmountable differences: stocky torso to his slim ribs, tanned, meaty arms against his skinny, pale wrist. Unfortunately, they were too, and they took every opportunity to painfully remind him.

“What are you watching, faggot?” one of his cousins, Thomas (or maybe it Lucas- they all looked so similar, like identical twin giants, that he couldn’t remember their names for the life of him) taunted. “The Faggot Show?”

Nathan paused the movie, a Lana Turner rerun circa 1947. “No, it’s just a movie,” he croaked. He pulled his legs against his chest until he could feel his kneecaps pressing into his ribs. “ _ If I could be any animal right now, any animal at all, I’d be an armadillo.”  _ Rolled up into a ball so tight that no one could see his face, scaly skin so thick it was impenetrable. 

“Fuck that gay shit,” another one of his cousins laughed, ripping the remote out of his hands. He socked Nathan in the arm and flicked through the t.v. guide until he landed on a football match. Already a purple bruise had begun to form above his elbow.

_ “Or a chameleon.”  _ Camouflaged into the beige davenport, fading out of everyone’s peripheral eyesight until he was invisible. He whimpered into his knees. Big mistake.

“Are you crying? Are you, you little twink?” That would be Isaac, distinguishable only by his impressively large hands _ , Football hand’s, a man’s hands,  _ as his Dad would say.

Nathan buried his head into his shoulders to the point where his nose was smashed against his kneecaps.  _ “I wish I was a chameleon.”  _

“He is! He so fucking is!” Thomas or Lucas or whoever it was crooned. “Cock sucker’s crying, cock sucker’s crying” one of them cheered. 

“Cock sucker’s crying, cock sucker’s crying, COCK SUCKER’S CRYING!” they chanted. He wasn’t crying before, but now he could feel the sobs welling up in his throat. He bit his lip, hard, the searing pain a welcome distraction. “ ‘m not crying” he whispered into the crook of his knees. Lifting his head so he could see his cousins, “I’m not crying, OK!” he shouted. 

For once in their miserable lives, his cousins were silent. Nathan exhaled, he could feel a headache building. “Hey,” Isaac said. “D’you know what would be fun?”

“What?” asked Lucas. 

“If we haze the little faggot,” Isaac pondered as if he were carefully deliberating stock prices. “Let’s haze the little faggot,” he concluded.

All the oxygen left Nathan’s body.  _ “Please, God, make me a chameleon right now.” _

“Where?” piped Lucas/Thomas. 

Isaac grinned. “We have a working fireplace don’t we?”

“No!” Nathan screamed, but one of his cousins had already slapped one of their palms across his mouth. He toyed with the idea of biting his cousin. On one hand, they would probably let go. On the other, it would be far worse for him if he resisted.

He was hoisted in the air, Isaac pinned his arms while Lucas and Thomas each grabbed onto a leg. One of them held him by the heel of his left foot, right where he was ticklish, and reflexively, he kicked. 

“Ow! You’re gonna pay for that, cock sucker,” Lucas/Thomas sneered. As a prisoner on death row comes to accept his fate, Nathan resigned and closed his eyes. 

He had lost track of the passage of time, or how far his cousins carried him until he felt a familiar wave of heat. He opened his eyes to a brilliant orange light. The crackle of burning wood popped in his ears. True as his cousins promised, Nathan found himself a foot away from the fireplace. 

“No, no, no” Nathan moaned. 

“Yes, yes, yes” Isaac mocked. Pressing Nathan’s face inches away from the fireplace, the black grate resembled a daunting cemetery gate. It didn’t hurt, at first. The heat wrapped around him like a blanket, and if Nathan could not ignore his cousin's meaty hands pinching his flesh, he could’ve closed his eyes and fallen asleep.

The temperature inched up by degrees; sweat trickled down Nathan’s nose, salty trail streaking his lips, evaporating before it could hit the floor. Orange and yellow, the bright colors were so bright he could see them even after he closed his eyes.

“Stop! Stop, let me go!” He was on fire, he might as well be. Flushed and heaving, he felt like the time he had caught the flu and was bedridden for an entire week; fits of exhaustion coupled with a never-ending fever. 

_ “I wish I was a butterfly.”  _ Small enough into his pocket, even a great big monarch. Pumping his small, glossy wings, ready to fly away in a moment’s notice.

“Isaac, I’m bored,” Lucas/Thomas whined. 

“Yeah,” Lucas/Thomas chimed in.

“Just a few more minutes,” Isaac grunted. 

Heat spread across his thin torso, even his back burned. “Let me go, let me go,” he pleaded. Hot. It was hot. The flames were so close, so close. Burning. Hot, hot, hot- he was screaming, suddenly. His mouth wasn’t moving, but he was screaming. Not for help, not for them to stop, certainly not for his mother, but he was screaming all the same.

Cold. Thank god, it was cold. Nathan gasped as his lungs pumped in welcome, fresh air. Colder than ice, Nathan could have kissed the stone floor. He felt a warm breath on his neck. 

“You’re a faggot,” Isaac grunted. “You’re a little faggot, and don’t ever forget it.” Nathan pressed his hands against his ears.  _ “I wish I was dead.”  _

* * *

 

“A soulmate? At this age? That’s just..wow.”

“It’s quite possible. We don’t yet know the science behind soulmates and what causes their outer stimuli to be so intertwined, but this sounds like an usually strong age. Especially at such a young age.”

“Thought and emotions? What, like they share a brain?”

“Sort of. It varies from each pair, but to be able to experiences someone else’s pain. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up sharing each other's thoughts.”

“But there must be something to control this, Dr. Patel? Warren was in so much pain today, he could hardly breathe? This can’t be healthy. And think of the poor kid on the other line, sounds like a case for Child Protective Services.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Graham, there isn’t anything we can do. We can only be prepared to keep an eye out for any potential fits.”

“Am I going to die?”

The two women snapped their heads around.

“Oh, honey!” His father burst into tears as he engulfed Warren into a crushing embrace. Prickly and coarse, his father’s day old stubble scratched Warren’s chubby cheeks. Warren began to notice his surroundings: the odorless, sterile air, a wilted pot of flowers in a hexagonal vase, the too-starched sheets that would crackle when he dove under the covers.

The last time Warren was in a hospital, he was six, and his tonsils had to be removed. Kids ran up and down the beds during visiting hours, often little siblings would clamber onto beds much to the dismay of their occupants, his cousins stole all his pudding cups. A magician even came in on Wednesdays, pulling coins behind kids’ ear, summoning flowers from under her sleeve. This was nothing like that.

His father’s shoulders were Frankensteinian in their rigidity. Silence in the room was deafening, so much so, that he didn’t even notice his gaggle of aunts and young cousins, who all stood outside a five feet radius.

“Am I going to die?” Warren repeated. He once watched a documentary about a man who had caught some strand of the Black Death through the rat feces from the processed foods in his pantry. He was given a strict quarantine, not even his own kids were allowed to be in the same room as him.

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Warren cried. “I’ve got the black death, and none of you are allowed to come near me!”

“What?” his father said. He laughed through his tears. “No, no!” He kissed Warren’s cheek.

“Honey, you’re not going to die,” his mother chimed in. “You’ve got a-”

_ “You’ve got a soulmate!”  _ Rosalind squealed. “Oh, it’s  _ so romantic,  _ Warren! You’ve met your soulmate!”

“Pipe down, Rosalind” his aunt Marie chided. “But she’s right, Warren. You’ve  finally met your soulmate.”

“I have?” Warren asked. He tried to think back to think back to all his classmates, Mr. Wang’s first-grade class. Wendy, with her infinite pack of crayons, who once lent him Indigo? Tom, who once traded his blueberry muffins for Warren’s strawberry banana yogurt? “Who are they?”

“Well, you haven’t technically met him yet,” Dr. Patel explained. “But we speculate that the burning sensation you felt earlier, could possibly be a shared emotion from your soulmate.”

Warren didn’t know what to say. Logically, he knew that he would meet his soulmate one day- everyone had one- but it always seemed like some far-off concern for future Warren, as intangible to him as paying taxes or driving. Soulmates were something adults had, along with babies (ick) and cars.

“I still think he’s a tad bit too young for this,” his aunt Marie sighed. “He’s not even out of elementary school.”

“Well, I think it’s cute, honey” his other Aunt Grace, gushed. “Remember when we first met each other? You were so sure of yourself,” she teased. “You said it was  _ destiny  _ if I remember correctly. 

“You don’t” Marie replied, dryly. “You definitely don’t…”

But all Warren could think about was his soulmate. If he was feeling his soulmate’s pain, were they ok? What if they were seriously hurt?

_ “Please be ok. Please be ok for me.”  _ Warren thought. 

* * *

 

Golden brown, dripping with thick, salty gravy, the turkey’s plump legs had this bizarre lifelike quality about them, muscles tightly coiled as if it was about to leaf off the dining room table. Big bowls of greens swimming in butter, garnishing potatoes and meat: verdant spinach leaves, crinkly lettuce, kale and cucumber salad. Nathan traces hills in the mashed potatoes, fluffy and white as clouds, but mushy like jellos. And gravy, gravy everywhere, oozing off clouds of mashed potatoes and turkey and slathered on thick, white baguettes. 

 

Nathan picked at his potatoes. 

“Is that all you’re going to have?” Perfectly oval and pale, his Uncle Donald’s face resembled one of the endless serving platters stacked with heaps of food. “You’ll never grow strong if you don’t put some meat on your bones.” His uncle squeezed Nathan’s wrist, engulfing his joint with only his thumb and forefinger.

“He eats like a girl, dad” Isaac smirked. Nathan’s uncle roared and shoved a thick slice of turkey into his mouth. Seriously, he gripped Nathan’s pointy chin, the same way he expected a sick dog. “Nathan...” he stage-whispered.

“Yes?” Nathan replied.

“You haven’t been reading Kristin’s diet magazines have you?” 

“..What?” Nathan squeaked before his Uncle immediately burst out into laughter. “Lighten up, kiddo. What are you PMSing?”, prompting more raucous laughter. Kristin frowned. 

_ “Jerk”  _ she mouthed to Nathan.

_ Can I be excused?  _ How many times had he thought that in the span of thirty minutes? The pecan pie wasn’t even on the table yet, and Nathan could already feel sick as if he had gobbled up the entire turkey rather than the few paltry bites he’d barely managed to swallow.

_ “Please be ok. Please be ok for me.”  _ A burst of warmth, like plunging into a warm bed. Had he ever felt such tender care?

“Who said that?” Nathan startled. Luckily, the entire table had been too preoccupied between bites of food (and snippets of a merger interrupting the jolly familial conversation) to notice him. Except for his mother, of course.

She shot him that cold, disapproving frown.  _ Quiet. _

_ “Who are you?”  _ Nathan thought. Suddenly, his head was cold. The absence of that warm, soulful feeling was like a sudden bullet, striking him breathless. 

_ “Come back,”  _ Nathan thought. At his uncle’s insistence, Nathan managed to choke down another slab of turkey.

_ “Please come back to me.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up next on your regularly scheduled program is the world's worst family: the Prescotts. In all severity, I wanted to both capture and flip the conventional family dynamic on it's head.
> 
> Up first, we have Warren's family. His dad is the one cooking Thanksgiving dinner and isn't afraid to express affection to his son. He actively listens to his son's concerns and does not hesitate to cry and hold his precious son. He takes an active interest in his son's wellbeing. 
> 
> On the other hand, Warren's mother is more composed during an emergency. She asks the doctor questions and stays calm while her husband fawns over Nathan. Both express an interest in Warren, but in different ways. 
> 
> Plus, Warren's two aunts are proud members of the LGBT community. And they have a lovely, if not slightly overzealous, daughter Rosalind. 
> 
> However, I intended Warren to come from a lower middle-class background (The heater remaining unfixed during fall). Despite this, Warren's family seems to get along happily and cherish each other.
> 
> In contrast, Nathan's house is big and beautiful and empty. Hollow of any festivity, his only company is his three homophobic cousins. I debated whether or not to include such foul language, but I wanted the interaction to be as realistic as possible. Kids can be assholes, simply put. 
> 
> Nathan's parents don't listen to his complaints, nor do they care. The adults are hopelessly backward and their shitty behavior can be traced in Nathan's cousins. 
> 
> I also wanted to highlight how Nathan grew up around toxic masculinity. I feel like that word is thrown around a lot, but this problematic mindset is often taught and learned, to the point where it might as well be ingrained. I don't think Nathan could rely on any actual father figures growing up, which ultimately led him to Jefferson. How will this homophobia shape Nathan, I wonder?
> 
> PS: All of Warren's family names are based on scientists!
> 
> PLEASE COMMENT BELOW ON WHAT YOU LIKED, DISLIKED. CRITICISM IS ALWAYS WELL APPRECIATED!


	22. Scavenger Hunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally updating my tattoo au! One of my reviewers, :), requested a tattoo au and I haven't been able to dedicate as much time as I wanted to write this story, and I realize that Caulscott means a lot to me. Don't get me wrong, I still plan to fulfill my Grahamscott and Pricescott and otherscott requests, but I just want to focus on Nathan and Max for now.
> 
> Speaking of which, I have an announcement to make: I am planning to write an NSFW anthology of Nathan-centric smut. More details, down below.
> 
> Onward to the story, then.
> 
> Hope you enjoy guys.

_ “It’s my fault.”  _ Sixteen years on this godforsaken planet, sixteen years of dazed mornings, dreaming up hypothetical first dates: park picnic, the theatre, long hike through the woods, and the best she could come up with is _ “It’s my fault.”  _ It seemed as if the only thing she could ever offer was an excuse.

* * *

 

She was nowhere near him. That is to say, she was everywhere, across from him in photography, brushing past him in the hallways, sliding into a booth at the Two Whales. He ate up her attention like a starving man at a feast, eyes trailing her petite figure long after she left the room. 

He stowed away pieces of her left behind for safe keeping. Little things: a pencil, a stick of gum. Hayden had once spotted him folding one of her discarded photographs, before slipping it into his pocket. Frowning with disapproval, Nathan felt the guilt squeeze his stomach as his fingers brush the film’s pointy edges. 

Hayden clamped his firm hand down on Nathan’s shoulder. But then Nathan flinches, and so Hayden retracts his arm.  _ “It’s just Hayden,”  _ he tells himself.  _ “He’s not Sean.” _

Apparently not: “Easy there, Nate, I got you brah.” The older boy doesn’t rub circles on his back but his voice soothes just the same. “Keeping my hands to myself Nathan,” Hayden affirms. He raises his hands up like a criminal, and a stab of guilt pierces Nathan’s stomach. “Just two dudes, standing five feet away from each other because they’re clearly not gay,” he jokes. 

Nathan snorts if the number of times he’s spent huddled in the other boy’s bed after a nightmare was any indicator, then he would have proposed to Hayden by now.

“Yeah man, I get it,” Nathan wheezes. “I’m good.”

“Good,” Hayden relieves, “but the hoarding stint you pull with Caulfield? Not good, okay? Not ok, at all.” 

It’s the last thing Nathan wants to hear, and somehow it saves him. “I know. I know, Hayden, it looks pretty fucked up.” Nathan breaths and the words just tumble out of his mouth like marbles. 

“Yeah, it’s definitely fucked up man,” Hayden scolds, and Nathan feels like he can breathe in an entire tornado’s worth of air.  _ “Thank god. Thank god I have you.”  _ He can’t imagine a life without Hayden, a life without a saint. He’s fucked up, and freakish, and sick in the head, and the only thing he can cling onto is Hayden’s scoldings. 

“It’s a new low,” Nathan confesses. 

“Not  _ that  _ bad. Remember the time you were so drunk you cried because you thought that the cats in YouTube videos were trapped inside your phone?” Hayden laughs and nudges his arm.

“Hey, we agreed never to talk about that!” Nathan scowls.  _ “ _ That was  _ one  _ time _.” _

“Oops, sorry.” He mimes zipping his lips and slam-dunking the key. “But still, you should probably give her her stuff back.” His tone is firm. But he’s not disappointed? Or angry?

“Um,” Nathan stutters.  _ “Um…”  _ He wraps his arms around his torso, nails digging into his elbows. 

“So, why don’t you give her things back in person, brah?” He reaches over and pats down Nathan’s quiff. Nathan does not bat his hand away. Or say much of anything. 

But he nods.

* * *

 

She was alone. That is to say, she was never lonely, sharing a table with him in the cafeteria, two bookshelves away from him in the library, perpendicular to each other in the parking lot. She drank up his cool, blue eyes like a woman parched, fingers tracing his name on her desk. 

She dropped pieces of herself left behind for him. Little things: a pencil, a stick of gum. Kate had once spotted her leaving one of her discarded photographs on his desk. Sighing with distaste, Max felt the anxiety choke her throat as her fingers brush the film’s shiny surface.

Kate tugged the bunch up bit of hoodie by Max’s elbow. But then Max shakes, so Kate pulls her into a hug.  _ “It’s only Kate,”  _ she reminds herself.  _ “She’s a saint.” _

Apparently so: “Hey, Max, it’s your friend Kate, the girl who you drink tea  and complain about precalculus with every Thursday, that Kate.” She didn’t know she was touch starved until she crumpled into Kate’s arms.

“Um, it’s ok Max, lots of people have weird quirks. My little sister Lynne still kisses all her stuffed animals before she goes to bed.” Her voice quavers, but the circles she rubs on her back are as firm and proud as an oak tree. “Even celebrities do weird things like collect toenails or lick envelopes.” Max stares back at her. “For fun, I mean.” She laughs into Kate’s nape.

Max takes a deep breath, wracking with tremors. Kate’s scent is somehow both warm and spicy, like a cinnamon roll, and she continues to gasp into Kate’s collarbone.

Kate hums and strokes Max’s hair out of her eyes. “So…” Kate  _ ahems  _ and tucks a brown lock behind Max’s ear. “Why do you do it?” Her voice, though inquisitive, isn’t tainted with judgment.

“I don’t know…” she lies. Her voice is muffled by Kate’s collar bones. 

“I think you do, Max” Kate urges. She rubs circles on the small of Max’s back, coaxing out her tears.

“I just want him to know it’s me,” Max confesses. “I don’t know why, but I need him to know that I’m here.” She imagines them like two ships sailing in the deep blue: passing by each other but never to meet.  _ “I’m here,”  _ she wants to scream.  _ “I’M RIGHT HERE!” _

“Why Max?” Kate coos. “Why him?” All of a sudden the rush of hot air on Kate’s neck ceases and Max is silent.  _ “Why him?”  _

Because it’s him. It’s as if she’s spotted a long lost friend after all this time, the person who’s known her better than she knew herself. People slipped in and out of her life- Chloe- all the time, and she just let them go like balloons, but the thought of letting Nathan Prescott go makes Max shudder.

“I just have to, Kate” Max sobs onto Kate’s shoulder. She wipes away the wet streak of salt on her cheeks with the back of her hand. Her voice, hot with conviction, “I just have to.”

* * *

 

On Monday morning, Max slips into photography class at the ungodly hour of 8 A.M. While being inside Jefferson’s classroom wasn’t particularly suspicious, it was hours earlier before anyone had arrived and so the classroom was completely deserted. Pink and small like a petal, the note in her hand is soaked in sweat from her clammy hands. She chews her lip.

_ “What if he sits somewhere else today? What if someone else gets the note? What if Victoria gets the note? What if she posts it online? And then everyone will know and then he’ll know and then he’ll think I’m super weird and then I’ll have no friends and I’ll have to move to Florida and I’m gonna have like a thousand mosquito bites and die itchy and alone…”  _ Max swallows, her hands the trembling branches of a sapling in a thunderstorm. She drops the note on the desk and runs- actually  _ runs-  _ out of the classroom.

“Waking up this early should be a federal offense,” Nathan yawned. Bitter and black as engine oil, the coffee is so strong it stays the same bituminous shade even when he dumps a small country’s worth of cream and sugar. 

“The early bird catches the Grande Espresso before rush hour,” Victoria chimes in. She sips on a neon orange concoction which is supposed to be some sort of herbal detox tea. It looks like radioactive dog vomit, and Nathan tells her so.

“Fuck off, Nate” she rolls her eyes. “It’s pineapple, persimmon, and acai. There so many vitamins it detoxes your entire system.” She eyes the charcoal rings around his eyes, the gaunt slope of his cheeks. “You could use some detoxing.”

Nathan snorts. “Yeah, maybe I’ll order a gallon of Holy Water next time.” 

She bumps his hip in solidarity. “We both know all the holy water in the world couldn’t cleanse us, Nate”.

He grunts in agreement. “Are you slut shaming, Vic?”

“Well you’re technically a guy Nate, so no, that’s just called being ‘the man’” Victoria smirks. She graciously holds open the door to photography, and Nathan steps inside. They slide into their customary back table when Nathan notices a crumpled note his seat.

“Ugh, can’t people be bothered to pick up after themselves? Doesn’t Samuel get paid for this shit?” Victoria groused. 

He knew it was hers as soon as he laid eyes on it. Small and crumpled so that it’s contents where hidden, Nathan scoops the piece of paper up like it’s a newborn kitten and cradles in his palm.

“Probably just trash,” he lies. 

Over the course of the next sixty-five minutes, Nathan turns over the pink slip of paper between his fingers, until the post-it is soaked in sweat from his clammy hands. 

“Meet me at the lighthouse at 4”. 

Heart thrumming to the tempo of a hummingbird’s wings, he could hardly wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the lighthouse, we go! Some notes on this chapter: in this house we stan a wonderfully platonic relationship with Hayden and Nathan. I wanted to establish Nathan and Hayden's nontoxic friendship because it allowed Nathan to be comfortable with another man, outside of a sexual notation, which is often so ignored by media. In fact, having Nathan, someone who I consider to be bisexual only amplifies the need for a healthy, platonic male relationship. And while I still stand by this fandom and lgbt representation, sometimes I feel like this fandom ships platonic male relationships and sexualizes them to a point where men can't be in a nontoxic, caring friendship without being labeled as "gay".
> 
> Another thing: stalking isn't sexy. It has never BEEN sexy, it never IS sexy, and it will never BE sexy. For all my faults, one thing I try to steer clear of is the unhealthy and downright predatory stereotypes plaguing YA genres. There are so many of them that make my blood boil, but one of them is that the guy invades an innocent girl's privacy, obsessively hoards any scrap of attention, in the name of love. Hell. No. If anybody does this, whether it be guy or girl, then they're either
> 
> a) a creepy stalker  
> b) a serial killer  
> c) both
> 
> I also made it a priority for Hayden to respectfully condemn Nathan's behavior because I think it's important for men to set examples for other men. I think it showcases a level of understanding that we, as a society, condemn this behavior from all sides. On the flip side, Kate also explains to Max that this behavior is NOT healthy. Rather than continue this little scavenger hunt, it's much better of two of them finally meet.
> 
> Which brings me to my final announcement: I am writing an NSFW anthology of Nathan-centric smut. Well, not always smut, but...ok, yeah it's definitely stories you wouldn't read in front of your grandmother (dead or otherwise). 
> 
> I can't say what inspired this sudden care for sexual exploits-oh, wait, yes I can! After Tumblr banned all their NSFW content, I realized that sexual expression is important to me. Nobody should be able to dictate or condemn that. And while I've wanted to write NSFW works, I could never work up the courage until I was faced with the possibility of never being able to. You never realize the importance of something until it's snatched away.
> 
> So, with that being said, I am definitely writing this NSFW series! It will be under a separate story, but in the same series as By Way of. I've decided to title it "Blue Rhapsody".
> 
> I am now accepting requests for this new NSFW story. While I cannot guarantee that I will write every request, I'll be happy to at least give them a look! So ask away!
> 
> AS ALWAYS PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW. CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS APPRECIATED. AND PLEASE REQUEST!


	23. Blue Rhapsody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To which Nathan is left no choice: he kisses her. Deeply, a resounding yes, a fucking hell yeah, if there ever was. “Max,” Nathan growls, this time not caring to keep his obvious hunger from leaking into his voice. 
> 
> “I want to fuck you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, my lovely readers! As you might speculate from the title, this chapter isn't actually an update, but a snippet of my new Nathan-centric NSFW series titled "Blue Rhapsody".

Max is beautiful. 

Afternoon sunlight lazily falls through his dorm room window, bathing his Max in a golden glow. Baby blue isn’t the only color of her eyes. The sunlight reveals hidden shades, coaxes out glints of aquamarine and indigo. Has he ever seen her so clearly? 

“You’re beautiful, too.” Nathan nearly recoils at her statement. The words weren’t an easy feat, Nathan could see the pink dusting coagulating on her china pale cheeks.

Nathan is…

Angry. One time, he catches Warren’s eyes linger on Max after she crashes into him in the hallway. Pens and pencils go flying and Max bends down to pick them up. Warren’s eyes follow the valley of her breasts, he tries to look down Max’s shirt, Nathan could just tell. The sickly satisfying  _ crunch  _ of his knuckles against Warren’s jaw is like the drag of a newly-lit cigarette and it leaves Max in tears.

Destructive. Sometimes a punch isn’t enough to quell Nathan’s rage. He’s a hurricane, culling heavy winds, wrecking everything in his vicinity.  _ Smack,  _ his palm strikes the scratched oak surface of a classroom desk.  _ Crash,  _ when he flings the desk at a window; glass is everywhere, when he steps in it, the soles of his shoes turn red. Madsen and Wells, wrestling him to the ground like a runaway asylum patient. 

Lost. Is it Tuesday or Friday? Nathan has lost all sense of time since he met Max. He could only distinguish the years between two chapters: Life With Max and Life Without. Oddly enough, he doesn’t mind this temporal conundrum. He’d only felt this way before, once, after lighting up a particularly potent blunt that Frank had promised would “blow his fucking mind”. It did that, and then some, leaving Nathan glued to the ceiling. He much prefers the mind-numbing satiety of Max’s warm embrace.

Nathan is many things, but he is not beautiful. Even so, Max insists: 

“You’re beautiful, Nathan. You’re beauti- mmph!” He cuts her off with an open-mouthed kiss. She’s good to him, too good to him. She’s an angel led astray, a paragon of virtue, a, a... 

_ “Nathan,” _ she whispers between kisses. His thumbs dig into her frail hips. Just the hem of her panties peeks out from underneath her fuzzy shorts. purple.

His fingers aren’t content simply trailing down her hips. They slip underneath her underwear, but he still has the sense to only trace her hip bone. Of all people, Max wouldn’t dare venture past some heavy petting.

“More,” Max whines. She tilts her hips just so they grind against Nathan’s too tight pants.  _ Ok, fuck, I was wrong. _

Cautiously, Nathan picks at the hem of Max’s shorts. The elastic waistband is taut where he pulls at the fabric. He pushes her shorts past her thighs, and Max enthusiastically kicks them off. Maybe they land on her desk, maybe they’re crumpled on the floor. Nathan sure as hell doesn’t care and judging by the way Max pulls him flush to her hips, she is similarly unconcerned.

Thin. Flimsy, really. Although the lilac cotton is opaque enough to cover her private parts, the outlines of her labia leave nothing to the imagination. 

_ It’s cool. It’s just underwear, Nathan. Nothing sexy here.  _ Which is a load of crap, by the way. When Max shifts her hips just right, Nathan can feel her throbbing against his black jeans. 

“My shirt,” Max whispers.

“What about it?” Nathan asks.  _ Jane Doe,  _ the stark outline of a startled deer, it is both the least and most Max thing Max owned. Although she startled- and startled often, especially now, as Nathan bit into her neck- she was also bold, threading her slender fingers into his hair. 

“Take it off?” Max asks. “Please?” she amends. Nathan chuckles against her nape. Trust Max to mind her manners, even now.

“Of course,” Nathan replied, happy to oblige. His fingers tug her shirt, the inside of her pink shirt a veil, and suddenly Max is topless.

_ “ They match,”  _ is the first thing Nathan notices. Perhaps not the same shade, but dark enough to be considered purple, her bra borders on maroon.  _ “She’s beautiful,”  _

Nathan swallows. She’s cold; Max shivers. Nathan can see goose pimples rising on her arms, her legs, Nathan wants to rub his hands all over her because he feels hot, hot, hot.

“I want to hold you,” Nathan swallows.

“I’d like that,” Max smiles, but it’s soft. He can barely make out the poke of her two front teeth, but he can see the flush of her cheeks. It catapults his heart into his throat, and Nathan doesn’t realize he’s pulling her into his arms until he can feel the flush of her torso. 

Holding Max has always grounded Nathan in a way the whale sounds couldn’t. He suspects it has something to do with her scent: sweat and powdery deodorant and wildflowers after rain. 

It also brings him eye level to her bra. Which again,  _ “It matches.”  _ Nathan tries to concentrate on the crook of her shoulder rather than her bra strap, but Nathan’s never been any good at multitasking. 

_ “Stop it. Stop overthinking it. It could be a coincidence.”  _ Max sighs as Nathan cups her through her bra. Barely perceptible, the peak under Max’s bra stiffens when Nathan skims his thumb around it.  _ “A very, very, sexy coincidence.” _

_ “It’s not like all women who wear matching underwear expect to get laid, Nathan”  _ he chastises himself. Victoria regularly color-coded her clothes-  _ all her clothes,  _ she had delightfully cackled as Nathan groaned and muffled his ears with one of her many intricate throw pillows. Now all he can do is frantically try to remember Victoria’s matter of fact tone; if he could time travel, he would rip the throw pillow off his stupid past self and wallop him with it.

_ “Pay attention,”  _ Victoria’s voice snaps, and Nathan suddenly remembers the very alluring, half-naked girl under him. Has he been slobbering over her shoulder for the last five minutes?  _ Stop spacing out,  _ Nathan reminds himself. He hikes his lips past her shoulder and moves to her throat, where he presses some open-mouthed kisses.

_  
_ While he understood  why  he was so taken with Max, he could never understand what about Max made him lose his train of thought, checking out of conscience with the frequency of a flickering light bulb. His sex life pre-Max, while a tad devoid of any sentimentality, was passionate enough to make him forget everything but that high

he chased with reckless abandon (and his partner’s of course. Nathan refuses to be a shitty one-pump thrust horror story echoed from the disappointed tales from Victoria, Taylor, etc). Still, his sex was ok, and then it was good. If not for the quality, the quantity provided a well enough distraction for Nathan to remain more or less content. 

Sex with Max would be a new, truthfully told, completely uncharted territory for them. Technically it would be  _ more  _ new to her than him, but Nathan feels strangely uncertain, finds himself second guessing her breathy moans.

If Max’s gasp leaves her breathless, then it punches the air out of Nathan’s lungs. “Nathan I,” Max trails off as Nathan suckles a spot, above her nape, but underneath her ear. 

“What is it,” Nathan nearly growls. He bites his tongue just in time so that it comes out as a guttural demand. He silently sighs, as he prepares to roll off Max. Too much for one evening, but Nathan knows better to push this. He of all people knows the importance the boundaries, and how impossible it was to willingly bring them down after they’d been shattered.

“I want to be with you.”

_...What? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who was expecting an update, I hope I haven't disappointed you. The point of this chapter was to clear up some questions about my new NSFW series which I should have clarified.
> 
> To begin, this series is an NSFW series. And by that I mean, explicit SEXUAL content. Possibly with many different ships, all of which involve Nathan. I'd like to consider myself an openminded person, so I'm willing to indulge in various ships, as long as they involve Nathan. I have some ideas based on chapters in this story (tattoo au, wink wink), but I'm definitely open to requests!
> 
> As for requests, I have to give a disclaimer: as much as I'd wish I was comfortable indulging all sorts of kinks and fetishes that's simply not true. I don't know any of my hard limits yet because I am writing smut after all, which is pretty impersonal, but at the very least I'm open to hearing your requests. 
> 
> I just ask that you respect my right to turn down certain requests for various reasons. Hopefully, this will be rare, but I can't predict the future. Please know that if I refuse said request, if ever, that this is not a judgment on someone or their kinks. I'm a strong advocate for sexual freedom, and the right to produce FICTIONAL sexual content. But that doesn't necessarily mean I am comfortable writing specific sexual content. 
> 
> That being said, LET THE NSFW PROMPTS COMMENCE! CAULSCOTT? GRAHAMSCOTT? ALL THE SCOTTS! COMMENT WITH WHATEVER YOU WANT TO SEE BECAUSE I AM SO PUMPED FOR THIS SERIES! 
> 
> Seriously, though. Don't be afraid to ask!


	24. Vertigo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another extension to my beloved tattoo au! So many more works to come!

**THIS IS A NO SMOKING ZONE!**

Nathan isn’t blind- the sign’s bold red capitals are so conspicuous, they almost dwarf the 200-foot lighthouse. He lights a cigarette anyways. For a few seconds all he tastes is tar, but then he inhales, the hot air in his lungs sweet as candy. Angry waves crash below him, the petulant squawk of hungry seagulls.

One of them lands near his shoe. Its white flap of wings startles him so much he drops his cigarette.  _ This is why I hate this place.  _ Things in Arcadia Bay seemed to vanish entirely and reappear in the strangest of places. His car keys turned out to be in the science classroom, behind the beakers; Fir trees, tall as a school bus, grew overnight; a seagull, flying out of nowhere, startles you and makes you drop your cigarette.  _ Makes my skin crawl. _

When Nathan bends over to pick his cigarette, the seagull screeches an unholy sound and pecks his middle finger sharp enough to draw blood. “Shit!”

* * *

 

To her consternation, this greedy, rude human seems to think that her fascinating, new twig belongs to him. She squawks at him in warning, and when he still doesn’t listen (the  _ nerve  _ of him- hasn’t he ever heard of finders, keepers?) she scratches her orange beaks against one of his bony fingers. Success! The human retreats and she flies away with her twig (which is oddly crumbling into some sort of black powder) nestled safely in her beak.

* * *

 

Fine then, take my cigarette you asshole!” Nathan huffs and reaches for another cigarette.  _ Crap.  _ Even though the carton is empty, he still digs his finger into the box as if there’s still one more hidden away in the cardboard folds. But the universe doesn't offer consolation prizes, not even when your last cigarette is stolen by an asshole seagull, and you might have been stood up by the love of your life in thirty-degree weather.

His fingers twitch, half cold, half bored, and entirely sick with nerves. _She’s going to come,_ Nathan swallows. _She has to._ Not knowing what else to do, he fiddles with the crumpled post it in his pocket. _“Meet me at the lighthouse_ _at 4”._

According to his smartphone, it’s exactly 3:57 and fifty-two...fifty-three seconds.  _ It’s fine, there’s still some time left.  _ Her note burns a hole in his pocket.

Two minutes.

_ She was probably held up by traffic.  _ But there was hardly ever any traffic is their hole-in-a-wall town. Except maybe on Thanksgiving, but the relatives usually left as soon as the turkey was carved. Still, there could be a roadblock.  _ Deer crossing. Squirrel crossing.  _ His fingers dig into his palms.  _ Seagull crossing. _

One minute.

_ How high am I right now?  _ Quite literally, the crags and boulders like black specks at this height. Also, he smoked a joint in the parking lot, and now he can’t comprehend how his left hand is bigger than his head but still smaller than his foot, but that’s neither here nor there. 

The length from the cliff to the ocean has to be at least taller than the lighthouse, certain death if he fell over. Which doesn’t sound all that bad, when he thinks of the seconds ticking away to four. A smooth plunge down, a few seconds in free fall and then  _ splat! _

Would his funeral be open or closed casket?  _ Open casket, definitely. _ As much as the thought of a cramped 3 x 6 coffin makes his skin crawl, it’s a relief knowing that he won’t be on display anymore. He could never escape the eyes, classmates whispering about  _ that fucked up Prescott kid,  _ Madsen tracking him with a predatory gaze, family dinners surrounded by the last people on Earth he’d ever want to spend time with. 

Zero minutes. 

So that’s it then. She’s not coming. His heart clenches, squeezing under the pressure of her own two hands.  _ Goddamnit.  _ He hates the tears that roll down his cheeks. “Stop it!” he screams. “You’re such a pussy.”

_ “Nathan, Nathan”  _ It’s coming from the cliff. Before he knows it, he’s somehow at the edge of the cliff, looking down from more than 200 feet. He hears his name in the wind. Tides of frigid ocean water bolster on top of each other, he’s hypnotized by the crashing waves. 

_ “It’ll be the last thing I ever hear,”  _ Nathan realizes. But he’s so tired of the voices, always angry at him, always frustrated. He sticks out one foot and it dangles over the cliff side.  _ Pussy,  _ he thinks.  _ You are such a pussy.  _ If only he had talked to Max earlier. Even now, he can’t blame her for not coming. The words sear his skin,  _ whattookyousolong?, whattookyousolong? whattookyousolong- _

“What took you so long?”

Her voice is an icy douse of water on a hot day. It jolts every fiber of his being awake, he understands. He understands, he knows that he was made for her, Max is the reason his worn out body, fucked up from cigarettes and beer and unsought sex still trudged on. Nathan was born to hear those words, her face,  _ I need to see her now,  _ except he loses his balance, and he’s falling,  _ No no no, Max, no! _

Freefall. 

* * *

 

_ Cold.  _ Falling is a bit like freezing, Nathan discovers. The cold spreads across his chest, pushing the heat from his torso outward. He braces for impact. His skin feels like it’s being pulled off his back, why is that?

“Nathan!” Max shrieks. He’s practically perpendicular to the sea, but she’s got him, grabbed onto the back of his red varsity jacket. She heaves, surprising strength for her small form. “Use your weight!” 

_ Seagull shit,  _ Nathan gags. The sea smells like rotten fish and pigeon shit.  _ Who’d want to die here?  _ Strangely, the sea doesn’t look so enticing anymore. Its tides aren’t hypnotic so much as they are annoying, like a louder version of nails on a chalkboard. And it’s not the sea that calls to Nathan, it’s

“Swing yourself backward!” Max screams over the crackling wind.  _ Max,  _ Nathan thinks. “I’ll catch you!”

And she does. He topples backward, right into her arms, which are waiting outstretched for Nathan.  _ God, she’s smell so much better than rotten fish,  _ is the first thing he registers.

_ She’s crying,  _ is the second. Squeezing him in her thin arms, she sobs and holds Nathan. “I- I thought you were going to die!”

Die? A minute ago, the word had seemed inviting, like a warm house in the middle of a storm, but now it sounded empty and chilling. He tried to imagine a world without Max, without soulmates and warm hugs. He couldn’t. 

_ The fuck was I thinking?  _ He wants to wake up to a sleep-tousled Max, drive to school with her, her soft, larklike voice filling in the empty silences, make love to Max and hold her close. He was going to throw away all that? For what?

“I am a stupid, stupid man,” Nathan apologizes. He suspects it’ll be the first of many, but it’s infinitely preferable to a world devoid of Max. “I’m so sorry, Max. I’m so sorry you had to see me like that.”  _ No, that’s not right,  _ the words are on the tip of his tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe in  _ us. _ ”

“Well, believe it,” Max says. Her cheeks are flushed in anger, but her eyes are soft ( _ Oh god, that’s kind of cute) _ . “Or I’ll believe for the both of us.” 

He likes the sound of that. Entwining their hands together, her palms are small against his long, spindly fingers. “For the both of us”, he promises, sealing their vows with a kiss on her palm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nathan's falling...in love! Ha, what a terrible pun. But seriously, I think one defining point of Nathan is how he's always off balance. I guess you could say that he's not exactly straight, heh heh heh. Ok, enough of the puns.
> 
> Nathan is always falling, period. What Nathan and Max have in common is that they're both artists and they reimagine the world, it's all very dreamy and romantic. And I think part of that, is this infatuation they have with their surroundings. In LIS, Max is hyper-aware of the world around her to the point where she thinks about everything, constantly. 
> 
> I imagine Nathan is like that too. He hears the sea beckon to him, even fights with a seagull because he is at one with his surroundings. I always considered Arcadia Bay to be its own character, much like Samuel. And as much as people try to escape Arcadia Bay (Rachel and Chloe and even Max being prime examples) it always calls them back. Nathan is no exception.
> 
> Today, however, his love for Max has seemed to win. I've always envisioned this scene since I began this fic. I absolutely love the soulmate au because it's just so romantic. The idea of fate and destiny pulling these two together is breathtaking. Watching and writing Nathan falling in love just makes my heart melt for him and Max.
> 
> But, but, but! Don't forget about Chloe. As you may or may not remember, Chloe was part of the soulmate au, and she and Nathan did the horizontal hula and well...
> 
> That big news for Nathan and Max. Can't wait to write that!
> 
> In the meantime, PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW! AND A REQUEST! IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I HAD A REQUEST! DEAR GOD, PLEASE LEAVE A REQUEST!


	25. Internal Affairs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan Prescott starring as “Disgruntled Husband”
> 
> Jane Doe starring as “Playfully Chastising Housewife”
> 
> Presenting: Man who Comes Home for Dinner after a Hard Day at the Office

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to update this fic more often, I really do. Real life has kind of gotten into the way my updating but after visiting this work, I realize the reason that I wanted to write this was not for anyone else but for myself. And sometimes that means taking a break from requests and focusing on your own stuff.

Nathan has played it over in his head at least a thousand times now:

* * *

 

**Nathan Prescott starring as _“Disgruntled Husband”_**

**Jane Doe starring as _“Playfully Chastising Housewife”_**

**Presenting: _Man who Comes Home for Dinner after a Hard Day at the Office_**

 

A mid-sized single family house with red shutters and a red door. A woman hums to the tune of “London Bridge,” while carefully sprinkling a dash of iodized salt onto her pot roast. She inhales, lovingly, cradling the pot roast as if it were her own little newborn baby. She then sticks her newborn baby into the oven and sets the temperature to 350 degrees.

“I’m home, honey!” her husband waltzes into the front door, wearing an olive green coat and tie. His name is [Nathan Prescott]. He sets down his suitcase and inhales.

“What took you so long?” asks the woman, passive-aggressively flipping through an IKEA catalog. Her name is [Jane Doe].

Nathan Prescott: “Work is work, honey.” He hangs his coat up on the coat rack and unties his shoes on their polyester blue coach. 

Jane Doe: “You say that every day, but you keep coming home later and later.” She flips through the catalog and picks out a pine wood end table for the low price of $799.99. 

Nathan Prescott (slightly annoyed, and a little hungry): “Well, honey, it’s not like I  _ choose  _ to work this hard. Believe me, I’d come home earlier if I could.”

Jane Doe (continuing as if she hadn’t heard him): “I never said it was  _ your  _ fault. I just saying that I miss you, that’s all. Say wouldn’t this pine wood end table look grand in our living room?”

Nathan Prescott (angry, but mostly hungry now): “Well, who do you think has to work this hard to afford your pine wood end tables?”

Jane Doe (defensive): “It wouldn’t just be  _ my  _ end table!”

The oven miraculously beeps.

Jane Doe: “Oh, the roast is done! I hope you’re hungry, sweetie, I made plenty!”

Nathan Prescott: “Boy oh boy, do I love your roast!”

Jane Doe goes into the kitchen and takes out the roast using checkered baking mitts. The roast is cooked medium rare. She puts the roast down in front of her husband. 

Jane Doe: “Dig in!”

Nathan Prescott: “Yum!” He takes a bite and vomits everywhere, on the roast, on the ceiling, on Jane Doe.

* * *

 

**Nathan Prescott starring as _“Irrational and Disgruntled Spouse”_**

**John Doe starring as _“Playfully Chastising Husband”_**

**Presenting: _Man Who Comes Homes for Dinner After a Hard Day at the Office_**

A mid-sized single family house with red shutters and a red door. A man swears like a sailor to the tune of “London Bridge,” while spilling an entire shakers worth of iodized salt onto his pot roast. He inhales, gags, neglecting the pot roast altogether as if it were his own little newborn baby. He then sticks his newborn baby into the microwave and sets the time to 100 seconds.

“I’m home, honey!” Husband waltzes into the front door, wearing an orange polka dotted coat and tie. His name is [John Doe]. He sets down his suitcase and inhales.

“Who the fuck are you?” asks the first man, aggressively grabbing a butter knife. His name is [Nathan Prescott].

John Doe: “Wow, you would not believe the day I had at work, Honey. Sometimes I wish we could switch places, but that would be just a disaster- my Honey just doesn’t have the head for numbers!”

He unties his shoes and throws his orange polka dotted coat on the polyester green couch. “Hey, honey, I think it’s time we buy a coat rack.”

Nathan Prescott: “Why the fuck do we need a goddamn coat rack? Don’t we have a fucking closet or something? I can’t think of a single human being from the twenty-first century who still has a coat rack.” 

John Doe (very concerned because he does not have a coat rack): “Well, honey, I just think we need a coat rack. All the dirt from my jacket is getting on our nice, new couch. Say, why don’t you look around for a nice coat rack and we’ll go down to the store buy it this weekend. Doesn’t that sound like a swell time, honey?”

Nathan Prescott (visibly irritated because he’s probably worried about polyester green couches or something): “Did you listen to a fucking word I said? Are you deaf or just mentally re-” He suddenly flips through an IKEA catalog, zeroing in on the coat racks and other foyer furnishings. “Whateverthefuck? Where the fuck did this IKEA catalog come from? Who even reads this crap?”

John Doe (chuckling at his hysterical spouse’s antics): “Calm down, Honey, you can have any coat rack you want.” He squeezes [ Nathan Prescott’s Honey’s] cheeks. “You get so emotional about everything, you’re so cute when you’re angry.”

Honey (internally panicking): “Please be stoned, god, please be stoned.”

The oven miraculously beeps.

Honey (obviously very irrational): “Fuck I totally forgot about that stupid roast! Wait, didn’t I put that in the microwave?” 

John Doe (rightfully disappointed): “Honestly, Snookums, is it too much to ask for a decent dinner around here?” He sighs and lowers his voice. “I think we need to have a talk about your time management, honey. I mean, you had _all_ _day_ to do this.”

Snookums/Honey runs into the kitchen and takes out the roast without using the checkered baking mitts, burning his hands. “SHIT!” The roast is charred black and smells like roadkill. He drops the roast in front of his husband. 

Snookums/Honey: “Fuck it, I’m ordering out. Do you want Chinese or Mexican?” 

John Doe: “Finally!” He takes a bite and vomits everywhere, on the roast, on the ceiling, on Nathan Prescott. 

Snookums/Honey (covered in vomit): “WHY WOULD YOU FUCKING DO THAT?!”

* * *

 

**Nathan Prescott starring as _“Irrational and Disgruntled Student”_**

**Mark Jefferson starring as _“Seriously Chastising Teacher”_**

**Presenting: _Man who Comes Home for Reasons Unexplained After a Hard Day at School_**

A mid-sized underground bunker with no shutters, but a grey door. A man swears like a sailor to the tune of “London Bridge,” while spilling an entire bottles’ worth of acetic acid onto his negatives. He accidentally inhales, gags, cursing the ruined film altogether as if it were his own little newborn baby. He then sticks his newborn baby into the chemical bath and sets a timer to 100 seconds.

“I’m back, Nathan!” a man waltzes into the front door, wearing a black and white coat and tie. His name is [Mark Jefferson]. He sets down his suitcase and inhales.

“Where the fuck were you?” asks the first man, aggressively grabbing a tripod. His name is [Nathan Prescott].

Mark Jefferson: “Wow, you would not believe the day I had at work, Nathan. Sometimes I wish we could switch places, so you could be fucking grateful for once, but that would be a disaster- you just don’t have the head for anything that doesn’t involve constantly fucking up!”

He unties his shoes and throws his black and white coat on the slate gray couch. “Nathan, I think it’s time we bury her body.”

Nathan Prescott: “Why the fuck do we need to bury her body? Don’t we have a fucking underground bunker all to ourselves or something? I can’t think of a single human being from the twenty-first century who would willingly bury a human body for no reason.” 

Mark Jefferson (very concerned because there is a dead body): “Well, Nathan, I’m telling you we need to bury her body. All the decay from her flesh is getting on our nice, new floors. I want you to look around for a nice empty lot- actually, we’ll go down to the junkyard and bury her this weekend. Ok, Nathan?”

Nathan Prescott (visibly irritated because he’s probably worried about hiding a large carcass or something): “Did you listen to a fucking word I said? Are you deaf or just mentally re-” He suddenly finds himself lying next to Rachel’s dead body, something wet running down his thigh. “Whateverthefuck? Where the fuck did these bruises come from? Who, other than the 40-year-old white man who collects candids of drugged out girls, would do this crap?”

Mark Jefferson: (chuckling at his hysterical student’s antics): “Calm down, fuckup, you can bury her any day you want.” He squeezes [ Nathan Prescott’s fuckup’s] cheeks. “You get so emotional about everything, you’re so exposed when you’re angry.”

Fuckup (internally panicking): “Please be stoned, god, please be stoned.”

The chemical bath miraculously beeps.

Fuckup (obviously very irrational): “Fuck I totally forgot about that stupid film! Wait, what happened in the last twenty minutes? Why does it hurt down there so fucking much? Why is my shirt on backward?” 

Mark Jefferson (rightfully disappointed): “Honestly, Nathan, is it too much to ask for one decent photo around here?” He sighs and lowers his voice. “I think we need to have a talk about your obvious fuckups, Nathan. I mean, you had _all_ _day_ to print this.”

Fuckup/Nathan stumbles into the dark room and takes out the photo without using white latex gloves, burning his hands. “SHIT!” The photo is charred black and smells like roadkill. He drops the photo in front of Mark. 

Fuckup/Nathan: “Fuck it, I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t, Mark.”

Mark Jefferson: “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” He bites of Nathan’s neck and leaves bruises everywhere, on his nape, on his back, on Nathan Prescott. 

Fuckup/Nathan (covered in bruises): “WHY WOULD YOU FUCKING DO THAT?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've just binge watched Mad Men for the 800th time this weekend, in case you couldn't tell.
> 
> Anyways, one of the more prominent themes in LIS, was gender roles, or the lack thereof. Max and Chloe are prime examples of people who don't conform to gender roles. Max is a masculine name, and Max honestly comes off pretty gender neutral, and although Chloe has a feminine name, her demeanour has a masculine, brash edge. And I think that's really eye-opening.
> 
> See, Nathan and Mark and Sean (the primary antagonists of the game) are actually locked in their gender roles. Sean and Mark are Nathan's role models, and in case you haven't noticed they're both terribly abusive and misogynistic, I suspect, men. 
> 
> Sean is adamant that Nathan maintains the Prescott image, which I believe is deeply rooted in America's corporate culture- selling the image of an All-American boy. It's why Nathan was forced to enroll in Football, it's why Sean doesn't take Nathan's photography seriously, because it's artistic and therefore, "not masculine". As a result, I wouldn't be surprised that Nathan was taught to despise all feminine parts of himself and look down on femininity.
> 
> Similarly, Mark also has a huge Madonna/whore complex that he idolizes purity above all traits. He kills and drugs Victoria and Chloe (both whom of which have flirted with Mark, indicating sexual agency) because he outright thinks that they are "sluts" because they're sexually liberated women. And because he is unable to see them anything beyond "sluts", he literally murders them in cold blood. 
> 
> On the other hand, Mark treats "pure" girls, "innocent" girls, as these fragile pieces of art. He spares them, only to feed his ego, as being the judge, jury, and executioner of their fate. When he spares them, he isn't validating their existence, he's validating his own beliefs that "whores" deserved to die while the "madonnas" deserve to live. 
> 
> I think Rachel is also a prime example of Mark's Madonna/Whore complex. Mark initially saw her as this virginal character, who he had to teach and mould, However, the game speculates that Rachel was not only with Frank but also with Nathan, who had feelings for her. I wouldn't be surprised if Mark murdered Rachel in a fit of rage after catching her with Nathan, only to pin the whole thing on Nathan.
> 
> Ultimately, Nathan's views of gender roles are so warped here, that he's come to associate weakness (i.e. the parts of him he hates as feminine) to the point where he imagines himself as a woman. 
> 
> Also, I have sprinkled references to Nathan's sexual assault. It's not uncommon for men to equate sexual assault as a loss in masculine identity. I think it says a lot about the world today, where ESPECIALLY in popular media, male rape (think prison rape) is treated as a joke. In fact, the male rape victim is often treated as a some laughable pathetic less-than, rather than an innocent victim, as if he could have prevente the rape. Rape is never due to the victim, rape is about power, NOT sex.
> 
> That being said, I, personally, the writer do not believe that gender has anything to do with strength or weakness, which is why I include snippets of breaking character, the fourth wall breaks, if you may. Moreover, as a bisexual man, I imagine Nathan might have a hard time finding his footing between acknowledging his masculinity and his sexuality without forsaking one or the other. 
> 
> Well, that's all folks. PLEASE REVIEW, COMMENT, REQUEST!


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